Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

GLAMORGAN COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.]

WEST HARTLEPOOL EXTENSION BILL [Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.]

Read the Third time, and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions — LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Private Street Works, Oldham

Mr. Hale: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government (1) what effect the recent review of the capital investment programme will have on the making up of unpaved streets in the county borough of Oldham;
(2) for what reason the Oldham Corporation has been asked to submit a photograph of a private street when making application for the approval of the making up of the street, in view of the fact that there are 400 unpaved streets in the county borough of Oldham.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Harold Macmillan): Under present conditions I can authorise only a limited amount of private street works, in cases of urgency. After seeing the photographs supplied by the Oldham Corporation I have agreed that work on a number of streets in their area may proceed.

Mr. Hale: Would the right hon. Gentleman give a clear answer to Question No. 1 as to what will be the effect of the diminution of capital development in Oldham on the reconstruction of these private streets, of which there

are 400, some in quite a shocking condition, and in respect of which the Oldham Corporation were doing a great amount of very effective work up till October last?

Mr. Macmillan: I do not know what the hon. Gentleman means by "diminution."

Mr. Hale: Would the Minister have a word with the Chancellor of the Exchequer? There is already a difference of opinion between them on this matter. The House is entitled to know what is the position. As I understood the right hon. Gentleman's answer, it was that there was a diminution. He said that he could only authorise a limited amount of work now. Can he say what that amount is?

Mr. Macmillan: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was referring to the capital investment programme for 1952 or 1953.

Cubley Water Scheme

Mr. E. Wakefield: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will receive a deputation from the Rural District Council of Ashbourne, who desire to direct his personal attention to the evergrowing danger of physical injury, as well as waste of labour and material, caused by the refusal of his Department to permit certain modifications of the Cubley water scheme.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I am aware of the representations and of the facts concerning this water supply. In view, however, of the complaints about damage to water fittings, I am arranging for this aspect of the question to be looked into again.

Plymouth City Centre (Licences)

Mr. Foot: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government when he expects to be able to make a full statement on the new licences to be issued for projects in Plymouth City Centre.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I have been able to authorise the rebuilding of another shop in the central area in Plymouth for which all the steel was in hand; but I have thought it more important to try


to obtain the necessary steel for projects in progress than to start on new proposals.

Mr. Foot: Does that mean that in effect no licences for new projects have been issued in Plymouth City Centre since this Government came into office? Does not the right hon. Gentleman think, that it is about time he gave to the City of Plymouth and other blitzed cities a full indication of the building which they will be allowed to undertake this year?

Mr. Macmillan: I still think that it is more important to give licences for the completion of work which is in hand and that we should wait for a little longer until we can see a little clearer what the programme will be.

Mr. Foot: Is it not a fact that licences for the projects which are already in hand had already been issued by the previous Government? Would not the right hon. Gentleman consult with the Minister of Labour about the grave threat to employment in Plymouth? Does he not think it is time, in the middle of the year, that some indication should be given to blitzed cities of the programme they will be allowed to carry out in the next six months?

Mr. Macmillan: The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do what are the reasons which make us hesitate to fix a programme now. I have tried to get them to finish what is in hand, much of which was stopped or prevented when the steel allocation system had to be introduced.

Slaughterhouses

Mr. E. Johnson: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government how many licensed slaughterhouses are situated in England and Wales; if he will give the number and location of those in the London area; and what steps he is taking to prevent the slaughtering of horses in unlicensed slaughterhouses.

Mr. H. Macmillan: Local authorities are not required to make returns of the number of slaughterhouses licensed by them, and central records are not therefore available. Responsibility for enforcing the law regarding the slaughter of animals rests by statute with the local authorities.

Mr. Johnson: In view of his position as Minister of Local Government, and in view of the widespread concern on both sides of the House at the killing of horses in circumstances of horrible brutality in unlicensed slaughterhouses, will my right hon. Friend instruct local authorities to take the most energetic steps to track down any unlicensed premises so that the people concerned may be brought to justice?

Mr. Macmillan: I fully agree, but perhaps my hon. Friend would wait for a statement in reply to a Question which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is about to make, when he will try to deal with all the different responsibilities of the different Departments, which will be a better moment to survey the problem as a whole.

Oral Answers to Questions — TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING

Gypsy Survey, Kent

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he is aware of the interest in the outcome of the Gypsy Survey in Kent; what progress has been made; and what directions under the Town and Country Planning Acts he is giving as a result of this survey.

Mr. H. Macmillan: The survey by the County Council has now been completed and the final report is being prepared. Action on this report is a matter for the County Council and the other local authorities and I must leave it to them.

Mr. Dodds: Will not the right hon. Gentleman take some interest in what is happening, to assist in pressing forward with a much-needed reform? Is he not aware that this would help the children to have a fair chance? In this House two Members—one on the Tory and one on the Labour side—have informed me that they have gypsy ancestors not far removed.

Mr. Macmillan: It is not a question whether one has gypsy ancestors but whether I should give directions under the Town and Country Planning Acts.

Mr. Ede: Would the right hon. Gentleman publish the Survey so that the various authorities can have the benefit of what has occurred in Kent?

Mr. Macmillan: I will look into that question.

Newton Aycliffe Development Corporation (Chairmanship)

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he is aware of the widespread concern that has arisen from his request that Lord Beveridge should give up the chairmanship of the Aycliffe Development Corporation; and, in view of his outstanding ability and desire to continue serving the best interests of this important scheme, if he will reconsider this decision.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I do not think I can usefully add to the full statement I made in my reply of the 13th June to the hon. and gallant Member for Ilford, South (Squadron Leader Cooper).

Mr. Dodds: Did Lord Beveridge express a desire to continue? Does not the Minister appreciate that to millions of people he represents the best in public life? In reaching his decision, did he consider the grave situation which could arise if the very sensitive Prime Minister took this to heart and left the Tory Party like a ship without a rudder?

Mr. Macmillan: The statement which I made was made at Lord Beveridge's request. He agreed the draft with me. He asked to be informed definitely how long he might expect to remain in this office. Great as are his services, I do not believe holders of this kind of office should be regarded as holding a life preferment.

Mr. Dodds: Would the Minister answer the question? Has Lord Beveridge expressed a desire to continue for a longer period?

Mr. Macmillan: It is my duty to make an appointment. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] I make an appointment for a year. Lord Beveridge asked what would be my intention after that time, and I said I thought that after that time, if I were in office, I should make a change in the appointment.

Harold Hill Estate, Romford (Amenities)

Lieut.-Colonel Lockwood: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether, in view of the need for increased amenities on the Harold Hill Estate, Romford, he will reconsider his decision to postpone a grant of £15,000

towards the cost of the establishment of a park and recreation grounds and other open spaces on the estate.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I have had to defer consent to the raising of a loan of £15,000 for this purpose in the, interests of national economy. No question of grant arises.

Lieut.-Colonel Lockwood: In reaching that decision, has the Minister taken into account the fact that permission has already been given to raise a loan to develop the land, and that if the land is acquired and there is no development, it will become derelict and virtually useless?

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: Are we to take it from the right hon. Gentleman's answer that he has now awakened to the fact that there is a diminution in capital investment?

Agricultural Land, Bracknell

Mr. Remnant: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he is aware that the Bracknell New Town Corporation are proposing by Compulsory Purchase Order No. 6 to acquire good agricultural land outside the designated area; and whether he will give an assurance that no further agricultural land outside that area will be acquired.

Mr. H. Macmillan: None of the land included in the Development Corporation's Compulsory Purchase Order No. 6 is outside the designated area of the New Town. I am, however, sending my hon. Friend a copy of a memorandum which has just been issued about a proposed small extension of the area of the New Town.

Mr. Remnant: Does that memorandum include the area of the land concerned, because my information is at variance to that of my right hon. Friend? Is he aware that the impression is growing in that area that it is his intention piece by piece to re-incorporate in the designated area the land which was included in the original designated area and taken out after the public inquiry?

Mr. Macmillan: I can give my hon. Friend a complete assurance on that point. There is no such intention. It was done for purely technical reasons.

Development Charges

Mr. Grimond: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will now give the Government's policy in relation to town and country planning and, in particular, to the development charges.

Mr. H. Macmillan: If I may venture on the phrase without impropriety, I would ask my hon. Friend to "wait and see."

Mr. Grimond: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that phrase is a promise of action? Can he give us some indication that action is to be taken as foreshadowed by his party at the Election? Because in the meantime the continuance of these development charges is hindering housing, and, in particular, hindering the housing of the poorer people of the community who cannot pay these charges?

Mr. Macmillan: I hope action will be taken, but that involves legislation, and there is not, I fear, any hope of legislation this Session.

Mr. Woodburn: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if anybody has benefited from these development charges it is the local authorities that are building the houses and have been able to get the land and other facilities at far less cost than ever before?

Mr. Macmillan: Yes, but I do observe that of the letters I receive on this subject half, if not more than half, come from hon. Gentlemen opposite.

New Towns

Mr. Sparks: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what new towns he proposes to designate in the near future.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I do not propose to designate any more new towns in the near future.

Mr. Sparks: Does that mean the Minister now takes the view that there is no longer any necessity to designate new towns?

Mr. Macmillan: I think it is much, more important to get on with building the new towns that have been designated than to designate a lot more.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING

Standards

Mr. Hale: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government for what reason the ceiling height of houses being built by the Oldham Corporation has been reduced from 8 ft. 6 in. to 7 ft. 6 in.; and whether he will give the comparable cubic capacities of comparable council houses having these ceiling heights.

Mr. H. Macmillan: The reduction which was from 8 ft. not 8 ft. 6 in., was one of the measures taken by the Council to reduce cost. The capacity is reduced by 6¼per cent.

Mr. Hale: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, while no one objected to this interesting experiment, we are all anxious to know whether the saving on cost will be more, in proportion, than the saving in amenities? Is it not time that he should come clean and say what reduction is being made in the general standards of council houses, as regards size, amenities and cupboard room and take these matters into account when he publishes any figures?

Mr. Macmillan: This was recommended in Circular 58/50 of 22nd May, 1950.

Mr. Hale: We are now being told that this is going to be introduced generally throughout the country. We want to know why and what the saving is going to be.

Mr. Gibson: Is it not a fact that the experiment which has been referred to by my hon. Friend has now in fact been made a widespread policy by the right hon. Gentleman's Department? Is it not also a fact that it is possible, if proper steps are taken, to make a reduction in building costs without reducing housing standards?

Mr. Macmillan: As the hon. Gentleman knows quite well, local authorities are absolutely free to build houses as they wish. For my purposes I shall be very glad if they succeed in building a larger number of houses, with the same amount of materials, of the well known Dudley standards and in accordance with the recommendations of both my predecessors.

Letting Agencies

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what progress has been made in respect to the investigations of his officials, following complaints of doubtful practices by house letting agents, who undertake to supply lists of vacant accommodation on payment of a registration fee.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what further consideration he has given to the activities of letting agencies charging fees to persons in need of housing accommodation.

Mr. H. Macmillan: Considerable progress, which will, I hope, lead to action.

Mr. Dodds: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that there is not much more delay, because there have been plenty of examples of the way in which people have had money taken away from them by these people? Would he do something about these parasites who are battening on the public?

Mr. Macmillan: The problem is to find a method of action, which I hope to do, which does not involve legislation.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Will the Minister at least issue another warning to the public against these harpies who are shamefully, and to an ever-growing extent, exploiting the needs of people seeking homes? Will he, in particular, examine the activities of Watson, Price and Company, 55, Cleveland Street, W.1, and Craig and Company, 19, Gerrard Street, W.1?

Mr. Macmillan: Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman would let me have the information.

Building Contractors (Payment)

Mr. Patrick Maitland: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will call local authorities' attention to the speedier completion of domestic housebuilding which would result from prompt payment to building contractors; and if he will consider recommending prompt payment of 90 per cent. of the cost of materials upon delivery at the site and 95 per cent. of the cost of works as they are finished.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I would refer my hon. Friend to a circular I addressed to local authorities on 9th April, of which I am sending him a copy.

Steel Supplies

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will give an assurance that steel supplies are adequate to meet the certificates that he issues enabling local authorities to purchase steel for housing purposes.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I know there have been difficulties in obtaining building steel, but my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply is making every effort to adjust production to see that the right kind of steel is available.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is the Minister aware, to quote one example, that work on a housing site at Knights Hill, Norwood, was held up for eight months because it took all that time, after many protests and letters to his Department, to get the steel required? Is there any relation between the certificates which the right hon. Gentleman seems to be issuing in lavish quantities and the actual steel which local authorities can get hold of?

Mr. Macmillan: The hon. and gallant Gentleman does not seem to appreciate that the term "steel" does not define a uniform commodity. What we have been trying to do is to increase total building by getting a larger amount of reinforcement rods and pre-stressed wire, and that requires an alteration in the pattern in the steel industry which we are pressing forward and which is making, I think, remarkably good progress.

Pipes and Cement

Mr. Ewart: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government to what extent the housing programme is being retarded by a shortage of steel pipes and cement.

Mr. H. Macmillan: There are shortages in a few areas which we are doing all we can to overcome.

Mr. Ewart: Is the Minster aware that shortages of steel pipes and cement are retarding housing programmes on the North-West Coast, and particularly in Sunderland? Does he not agree that the


local authorities will not complete their programme of 300,000 houses unless building materials are forthcoming?

Mr. Macmillan: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman asked that supplementary because it enables me to say that, as he probably knows, the total production of cement in the country is increasing. The problem is of transport, and one of the places where the problem arises is in the North-East area, which is not a cement-producing area. There was a period in the winter, and at other times, when the transport problem was too big for us, but that is being dealt with. The production of cement is increasing, as a whole, and it is now a matter of moving it to the right place at the right time. Incidentally, the number of housing completions in Sunderland and the North-East is growing.

Mr. Ewart: Will the Minister deal with the shortage of steel pipes, because this is a serious matter? It is affecting the housing programme inasmuch as gas services are provided in only a certain number of houses, while in other houses the tenants are deprived of the amenities which they desire. In other words, they are being offered a choice of gas or electricity, and that is due to the shortage of pipes.

Mr. Macmillan: Here again, the hon. Gentleman insists on using the words "steel pipes" as if that were a single kind or article. If he means steel mains, there is a shortage and long delivery dates, but if he means steel conduit pipes to carry electric wires, there are many other substitutes which could be used.

Mr. Manuel: Could the Minister indicate when he talks about completions, how many completions there have been and how many authorities given for house building since the present Government came into office?

Mr. Macmillan: I do not think I should anticipate the next housing statement or I should get into trouble with the hon. Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo).

Mr. Ewart: May I tell the Minister that I was referring to gas pipes?

London Families (New Towns Accommodation)

Mr. Sparks: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will direct New Towns Development Corporations to allocate housing accommodation to families on the housing lists of local authorities who are in the greatest need.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. H. Brooke) on 17th June.

Mr. Sparks: Yes, but is the Minister aware that factory owners building new factories in some of the new towns are recruiting new staff from persons on the housing lists who are not in urgent need of accommodation at all and completely ignoring others who have been on the housing lists for a long time and who are really in urgent need? Will he take steps to see that the housing accommodation in the new towns really goes to the persons who are in most urgent need?

Mr. Macmillan: The hon. Gentleman knows that there are a good number of claims made on the new towns, not only for the L.C.C. area, that had, as it were, first claims when the new towns were begun; there is a strong demand from the L.C.C. also to be included. We are trying to get a fair arrangement by consultation and a new plan. There is also of course, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman will recognise, the need, if industry is to be moved, sometimes for key workers to be brought from different parts of the country in order to make the industrial development possible.

Rents (Voluntary Agreements)

Mr. Ernest Davies: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what action he has taken to prevent the circumvention of the Rent Restriction Acts by property companies which are exerting pressure on their tenants to enter into voluntary agreements to pay higher rents.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave on 17th June to the hon. Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner).

Mr. Davies: Yes, I am aware of that reply, but is the Minister aware that


certain of these public companies are exercising intimidation over their tenants, implying that, if they do not sign these new agreements, when or if the Government revise the Rent Restriction Acts, they will be in danger of being evicted?

Mr. Macmillan: All I can say is that under the present law a tenant is fairly well protected. He need not pay any increased rent. In many cases I have heard of the tenants have thought it right and fair to do so. But the tenant need not pay, and if by any mischance he should pay he can recover it at any time within two years.

Mr. Janner: What steps is the right hon. Gentleman taking to get the local authorities to publish the fact that these are wrong claims being made? It is a very serious matter and the tenants are being deceived.

Mr. Macmillan: It is not a wrong claim for a landlord to ask his tenant to make a voluntary addition to the rent. [Interruption.] That is not a wrong claim at all. Hon. Gentlemen know from their personal experience that in some cases the tenants have thought it right and fair to pay more rent—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"]—especially where services are paid for in the rent, the cost of which has risen. But it is wrong—I say to the hon. Gentleman if he will restrain his ardour a little—for pressure to be brought, and I hope that his Question, and the Questions last week, and my answer will give publicity to the fact that it is wrong to use such pressure.

Sir Edward Keeling: Is my right hon. Friend aware that with the present rents
some property owners have not enough money to carry out proper repairs?

Mr. Davies: That can be no reason for breaking the law. However, will the Minister give an assurance that those people who refuse to enter into voluntary agreements will not be prejudiced in regard to their relationships with their landlords should the Rent Restriction Acts be revised?

Gas Pipes, Sunderland

Mr. F. Willey: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what steps he is taking to ensure that a shortage of cast iron gas pipes shall not

delay the progress of housing in Sunderland.

Mr. H. Macmillan: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Fuel and Power and I have considered this matter. Although some delay in providing a gas supply is, I fear, inevitable, the Town Council do not intend to let this interfere with the completion and occupation of the houses.

Mr. Willey: Will the right hon. Gentleman reduce this delay to the minimum, because otherwise these houses will be completed without gas, and this is a very large estate? Second, will he realise that it is no good exhorting the local authorities unless they are backed up by a vigorous Department?

Exchanges

Mr. D. Jones: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will circularise all housing authorities requesting them to give consideration to facilitating the exchange of houses in appropriate cases, where persons have transferred their work from one town to another, so as to facilitate the redeployment of workpeople to the best possible advantage.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I am sending the hon. Member a copy of a circular which I addressed to all local housing authorities in January last.

West Cheshire Rent Tribunal

Mr. Collick: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what representations have been made to him objecting to the closing down of the West Cheshire Rent Tribunal; and what replies were made thereto.

Mr. H. Macmillan: The representations were, broadly, that the tribunal was doing good work, that intending applicants would have to incur greater expense in attending the offices of the new and more distant tribunal, that the new tribunal would do the work less satisfactorily and would not have the specialised rural knowledge of the old. The replies given were that the volume of work did not justify the continued separate existence of the tribunal, and that no additional expense would be placed on intending applicants since the tribunal itself would do the travelling.

Mr. Collick: Is the Minister aware that everybody in Lancashire and Cheshire who speaks with knowledge and authority on the work of the rent tribunals is opposed to the number of abolitions of these tribunals which the Minister has decided upon, and will he not even now, at this late hour, allow the County of Cheshire to retain at least one rent tribunal?

Mr. Macmillan: I understand that the hon. Gentleman and some other hon. Gentlemen are coming to see me on this matter, and I of course shall give all consideration to anything they may say, but I still think it better to make the tribunals mobile and have fewer of them than have rather more of them and have them static.

Requisitioned Premises (Ministry of Health Tenants)

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government in what metropolitan boroughs residential accommodation in requisitioned premises is reserved for tenants nominated by the Ministry of Health; how many houses or flats have been reserved in this way; and what qualifications make tenants eligible for this preferential treatment.

Mr. H. Macmillan: My arrangement with the local authorities in 59 requisitioned properties used as "half-way houses" in Paddington, Camberwell, Kensington, St. Marylebone, Stoke Newington and Westminster. The families nominated must be on the waiting list of a local housing authority and have become homeless through no fault of their own.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these somewhat secret privileges became public knowledge only when the Kensington Borough Council explained that Mr. Pavel Kuznetsov occupied one of its requisitioned flats, and is it right that foreign diplomats should get property of this kind where the rents are subsidised either out of rates or taxes?

Mr. Macmillan: That raises broad issues. I suppose it is right that if there are to be foreign diplomats, and the staffs of those diplomats, they should have somewhere where they can live. At any

rate, it is not I who housed Mr. Kuznetsov. He was housed in March. 1950, by my predecessor.

Softwoods

Mr. Gibson: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government, in view of the continuing reduction in the stocks of softwood during this year, how he proposes to maintain the present output of houses and flats.

Mr. H. Macmillan: The decline in stocks during the first part of this year is the normal seasonal trend; the present level of stocks is high compared with previous years.

Mr. Gibson: Is the Minister aware—I am quite sure he is—that whereas imports of softwoods have dropped by 56,000 standards this year, the stock of softwood timber has dropped by 65,000 standards, and that, if that goes on during the rest of the year, there will be an end even to the present housing progress?

Mr. Macmillan: The hon. Gentleman has quoted statistics, but he has chosen them to prove, if I may venture to say so, a false point. In March, 1950, the stock was 278,000 standards; in March, 1951, a comparable period—and it is the last published figures I am giving—the stock was 202,000; and in March, 1952. It was 669,000. Therefore, I do not think it is quite fair to say it has dropped. The hon. Gentleman must compare each period of the year with the similar period of another year. Of course, timber is bought at certain periods of the year, and imported at certain periods, and used largely at certain other, periods. It is an important thing to keep up the flow.

Mr. Gibson: Is it not a fact that these increased stocks the right hon. Gentleman has referred to were ordered by the late Government, and that since this Government came into power the importation of softwood timber for houses has practically stopped?

Mr. Macmillan: I am still trying to explain to the hon. Gentleman that timber is largely imported on a seasonal basis. Trees are cut at certain seasons of the year. Timber is imported at certain periods of the year. He can compare only like with like, and one period of the year with the same period of another year.

Mr. Nabarro: Is it not a fact that the very satisfactory trend in softwood timber stocks in the last 12 months is the direct result of the busting of the Socialist buying monopoly and the restoration of private enterprise?

Mr. Macmillan: Also I am much encouraged by the fall in the price of timber.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF WORKS

Building Works (Free Limits)

Mr. Hurd: asked the Minister of Works if he will now make a statement on further changes in the licensing system, particularly a relaxation of the £100 a year free limit in building.

Mr. F. M. Bennett: asked the Minister of Works whether, in view of the increased cost of building materials and labour since the £100 limit on house repair work was introduced, he is now prepared to raise, at least proportionately, the present ceiling of £100.

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Works the present limit of licence-free building work that may be carried out by an industrial undertaking without licence or permit from his Department.

Mr. Black: asked the Minister of Works whether he intends to renew the £100 building limit for a further period; or whether he has any alternative proposals.

The Minister of Works (Mr. David Eccles): I have examined carefully the possibility of increasing the free limits for building work. The potential demand for building and repair work is so great and the load on the building industry differs so much from one district to another that it has been found impossible to make a general relaxation of the licensing system at this time. I am, therefore, making an Order continuing for the 12 months from 1st July the present limit of £500 for industrial and agricultural buildings, but increasing the limit for other buildings from £100 to £200. The position will be reviewed in the autumn, and if conditions justify a change another Order will be made. In issuing licences for repair and maintenance above the free limits careful regard will be had to the load of work in the area concerned.

Mr. Hurd: Will my right hon. Friend and his colleagues take heart from the welcome that local authorities and individuals will give to this decision, and see whether it is possible to raise the free limit still further in certain districts where it would obviously be desirable and altogether practicable to do so?

Mr. Ellis Smith: Is the Minister aware that in industrial areas which have the best housing record this decision will be received with great indignation because of the inevitable consequences; and, if he accepts that line of reasoning, will he undertake to consult local authorities in order to avoid this decision affecting the building of houses?

Mr. Eccles: I think the hon. Gentleman is possibly wrong. The number of licences between £100 and £200 which are refused today are very few indeed. It is my view that a sufficient volume of maintenance actually helps the construction of new houses, because it enables the small and medium builder to dovetail in some maintenance work with some new construction. I hope and believe that the result of this, which is a very modest concession, will actually be that we shall get more houses than we otherwise would.

Mr. Black: Can my right hon. Friend indicate whether this increase in the limit, with obviously a reduction in the number of applications, will lead to a saving of manpower both in Government offices and in local authorities?

Mr. Eccles: I hope so.

Mr. Gibson: Before arriving at this decision, did the Minister consult the local authorities associations who have a very wide experience of the administration of this facet of housing work; and if the permitted unlicensed limit is to be doubled, will it not inevitably entail the taking up of a great deal more of the already short building labour, and as a result seriously impinge on the house construction programme?

Mr. Eccles: I did not consult the local authorities. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because this question of repairs differs very much from one area to another. The facts are that the amount of underemployment in the building industry due to the financial policy the Government are


pursuing is somewhat increasing—[Interruption.]Well, it was designed so to do; naturally we have to take the load off, and I have no doubt myself that this, which is a very modest increase, will not result in any decrease in house construction.

Mr. Hoy: As his answer affects the whole country, has the right hon. Gentleman made this statement after prior consultation with and the approval of the Secretary of State for Scotland?

Mr. Eccles: Yes, Sir. I have made very careful inquiries in Scotland, and both the industry and my officers in Scotland were for this increase in the limit.

Mr. Nabarro: Can my right hon. Friend clarify one point in regard to the continued limit of £500 licence-free entitlement for industrial building? Does that figure include or exclude any maintenance licence that may be granted to an industrial undertaking?

Mr. Eccles: The free limit of £500 is in addition to any block maintenance licence.

Dr. Stross: Would the Minister consider varying his directions so as to leave freedom to local authorities to accept these decisions or not according to their personal experience; and if we bring him evidence that this decision will prevent the building of houses at the speed that all parties in the House would like to see them built, will he change his mind and go back to the former position?

Mr. Eccles: There is flexibility as between one local authority and another in the allocation of licences over and above the free limits, and, as I indicated in my original answer, we shall vary what are called the "ceilings" as between one local authority and another on the best evidence we can get from them and from the building industry in the area of their capacity to do more work.

Mr. Bennett: While congratulating my right hon. Friend on his decision today, might I ask whether he would consider if some further concession might be made in the cases of individuals who have been building their own houses under the £100 free limit for some years past, and give them some further encouragement to get on with building their own houses?

Mr. Eccles: That is a question my hon. Friend must take up with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Local Government.

Crown Film Studios, Beaconsfield (Lease)

Mr. Profumo: asked the Minister of Works the terms under which the Crown Film Unit Studios, Beaconsfield, were leased to his department; how much money was spent in equipping them for production immediately after the war; and whether the lease has now been disposed of.

Mr. Eccles: It is not usual to disclose the terms under which property is leased to my Department. About £115,000 were spent by Ministry of Works in equipping these studios. This included a substantial sum for making good dilapidations due to war time use. The Central Office of Information spent another £41,000 on various items of technical equipment. The lease has not yet been disposed of.

Mr. Profumo: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that everything possible must be done to try to recover this very heavy capital expenditure which had to be made in re-equipping these studios; and, in view of that, could he answer the last part of my Question and let me know a little more about that? Have any offers been made to his Ministry by firms to lease these studios; and if so, what were the terms, and will he do everything in his power to dispose of the lease so that he may recover the capital expenditure originally made on the studios?

Mr. Eccles: Up to the present we have had no firm offer for the lease.

Mr. Ernest Davies: Would not the best way of recovering the capital expenditure be to allow the Crown Film Unit to remain in production?

Nash Terraces, Regent's Park

Sir T. Moore: asked the Minister of Works when the Nash houses in Regent's Park temporarily occupied by the Ministry of Agriculture will be restored to private ownership as recommended in the Gorrell Report.

Mr. Eccles: The Ministry of Agriculture will shortly move out of some of these houses. I propose to use them to accommodate staff of other Departments


in order to release requisitioned premises elsewhere. I cannot say when it will be economical to return the Nash terraces to the Commissioners of Crown Lands.

Sir T. Moore: Oddly enough, I hoped to be able to thank my right hon. Friend for his reply, but I find that I cannot; so may I ask why, since the Gorell Report recommended that these houses should be handed back for private accommodation within five years and that recommendation was accepted by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, the Leader of the Opposition, the time has been extended without there being consultation with this House?

Mr. Eccles: We really must try to make the best use of this accommodation. The Ministry hold 209 houses of which only 27 are requisitioned, and the others are leased from Crown lands. It would be a great pity to spoil a block of property, on which previous Governments since the war have spent £1½million, until I am quite sure that I can clear out this very large block and hand it back, which for the time being I am not.

Gun Emplacement, Jarvis Brook

Colonel Clarke: asked the Minister of Works if he will arrange for the removal, as soon as possible, of the concrete gun emplacement erected on church property at St. Michael and All Angels' Parish Church, Jarvis Brook, Sussex, at the beginning of the war for which no rent or compensation has ever been received.

Mr. Eccles: The removal of this gun emplacement is not considered necessary in the public interest and is not, therefore, the concern of my Department. It is open to the Church Council to claim the compensation which is payable from the War Department and to make their own arrangements.

Colonel Clarke: Does not my right hon. Friend realise that the presence of a gun emplacement close to a church door is not only an eyesore but singularly inappropriate, and that to meet an estimate of £118 which has been given to remove it is quite beyond the means of a small parish? Surely some grant could be made from public funds now that the war is over.

Mr. Eccles: The decision as to what temporary defence works it is best to remove in the public interest lies with the Temporary Defence Works Committee, and unless they recommend me to remove this emplacement, I cannot do it. I have great sympathy with the Church Council in this matter, but it is impossible to remove all the scars of six years of war.

Colonel Clarke: Even if all cannot be removed, cannot preference be given to the removal of one which is so near to a church?

Mining Subsidence (Financial Quotas)

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Works to what extent damage caused by mining subsidence is taken into account in fixing the financial quotas to local authorities for building licences for repairs.

Mr. Eccles: In the worst affected areas a specially high allocation is given to local authorities. In other areas cases which cannot be met under the local authority's allocation are sympathetically considered by my Department.

Mr. Swingler: Will the Minister not consider dealing with this matter separately? Would it not be better to deal with damage caused solely by mining subsidence separately from the normal quota given to local authorities, since it is impossible to forecast what the effects of the mining subsidence are going to be?

Mr. Eccles: I think it a good thing to use the local authorities as much as possible.

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Works if he is aware of the profound dissatisfaction of Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council with its present financial quota for building licences for repairs, owing to the National Coal Board's heavy demand for licences to repair properties seriously damaged by subsidence; and if he will give instructions to raise this quota or to treat mining subsidence cases separately.

Mr. Eccles: An increase has recently been applied for by the Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council and has been granted in full.

Pelicans, St. James's Park

Mr. F. Maclean: asked the Minister of Works whether he is yet in a position to make a statement regarding the sex of the pelicans in St. James's Park.

Mr. Eccles: No, Sir. I am advised that the birds are still too young to reveal their sex.

Mr. Bowles: Is the Minister not aware that if he takes a needle and thread, sticks the needle into a cork and holds it over the pelican, if it is a male it will swing in line and if it is a female it will go round in circles?

Mr. Eccles: I am aware that we are beginning to have competition from the Japanese, but not in this connection.

Industrial and Building Licences

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Works how many building maintenance licences were issued by his Department to industrial undertakings during 12 months ended 31st May, 1952, or latest convenient date; what was the aggregate value of such licences; and whether he will consider substituting for the present system an open general licence granting to every industrial undertaking an entitlement to spend on building maintenance a sum properly related to the assessment of the property to general rates or similar formula.

Mr. Eccles: During the 12 months ended May, 1952, 41,570 annual maintenance licences to a total value of £30,833,767 were issued by my Department.
I have very carefully considered the suggestion in the third part of the Hon. Member's Question and, as the matter is very complicated, I have written to explain why I do not think it would be an improvement on our existing system.

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Works how many licences for new construction, reconditioning and renovation, excluding building maintenance licences, were issued by his Department to industrial undertakings during 12 months ended 31st May, 1952, or latest convenient date; what was the aggregate value of such licences; and how many

such licences were in respect of applications to spend less than the sum of £1,000.

Mr. Eccles: The number of licences issued to industrial undertakings (excluding the annual maintenance licences) during the 12 months ending 31st May, 1952, was 45,416, to an aggregate value of £ 130,770,140. 11,911 licences amounting to £5,551,117 were in respect of applications to spend less than £1,000 on new work; I regret that figures for reconditioning and renovation under £1,000 are not available.

Mr. Nabarro: Would my right hon. Friend undertake to give further consideration to this problem in view of the fact that industrial undertakings at present often have to apply for a large number of small licences for maintenance work in connection with putting in machinery or undertaking work of that kind, all of which causes a great deal of administrative work to the firms and to the right hon. Gentleman's Department?

Mr. Eccles: I have not had many complaints, but if my hon. Friend will give me particulars I will certainly look into them.

Shipbuilding (Testing Tank)

Mr. F. Willey: asked the Minister of Works what progress is being made in the building of a new testing tank for the shipbuilding industry; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Eccles: A site has been secured at Feltham, Middlesex, and my Ministry is at work on the design. When plans are ready to go ahead with the major expenditure it will, of course, be necessary to consider the general economic situation at the time.

Mr. Willey: Will the right hon. Gentleman pay attention to the fact that this is urgently required by the shipbuilding industry, and that, although we are the biggest shipbuilding country in the world, we are at a disadvantage compared with the United States, Russia, Holland and Sweden, in this matter of a testing tank, and the sooner we overcome this disadvantage the better it will be for the industry?

Mr. Eccles: Yes, I agree with the hon. Gentleman.

Battersea Pleasure Gardens (Accidents)

Mr. Janner: asked the Minister of Works how many accidents have occurred to date this year at the Batter-sea Pleasure Gardens; if he can state the cause of the accident to three Spanish aerial cyclists on 16th June; and whether he is satisfied that every care is taken to prevent accidents to performing artistes and to members of the public taking part in the fun fair activities.

Mr. Eccles: No serious accidents have occurred at Battersea Pleasure Gardens this year. The performance given by the three Spanish aerial cyclists on 16th June was stopped because the sagging of the horizontal cable immobilised the cyclist. I am satisfied that Festival Gardens Ltd. takes every reasonable precaution to prevent accidents and to ensure the safety both of performers and the public.

Mr. Janner: Is the Minister aware of the fact that these three cyclists were suspended for some 25 minutes without being able to receive proper assistance, and will he go into the matter to see that that kind of peril is avoided in the future?

Mr. Eccles: I am aware of that, but the matter is difficult to understand. All I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that Spaniards are very great individualists and, I think, long accustomed to adversity.

Kensington Palace (Repairs)

Sir R. Glyn: asked the Minister of Works whether he will carry out repairs to Kensington Palace before more damage results to this historic building, bombed during the war.

Mr. Eccles: Yes, Sir, as soon as the money is available.

Hyde Park Gates (Widening)

Sir R. Glyn: asked the Minister of Works whether he will widen the entrances into Hyde Park for wheeled traffic, thus enabling a double line of vehicles to be accommodated in accordance with the recommendations of the official committee set up to study the statistics of London traffic problems.

Mr. Eccles: The London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee recommended the widening of Alexandra and Victoria Gates. Alexandra Gate has already been widened; I am advised by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport that any scheme for widening Victoria Gate must wait till money is available.

Brick Production

Mr. Mulley: asked the Minister of Works what was the percentage increase in the average monthly production of fletton and non-fletton bricks, respectively, for the period 1st January to 30th April, 1952, compared to the average of the previous four months.

Mr. Eccles: In the last four months of a year production may be expected to be higher than in the first four months when the weather is at its worst. But this winter the average monthly production of fletton bricks in January to April, 1952, was 4.0 per cent. higher than in September to December, 1951. Non-fletton brick production during the same period was 1.7 per cent. less than for the last four months of 1951, which is a smaller decline than in previous years.

Mr. Mulley: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the very welcome increase in the production of bricks has been due to the fletton side of the industry which has been able to use the Italian labour brought over for the purpose? Does he realise that if we want sufficient bricks to sustain the housing programme and the new licence-free limit which he has announced we need a big increase in non-fletton production? What steps is he taking to this end?

Mr. Eccles: I quite agree. We want more bricks all round. At the moment the production is rising quite well, and I see no reason to think it will not continue.

Mr. Mulley: Does the right hon. Gentleman still take that rather complacent view although the April figures, when the weather was improving, were worse than those for March? Will he apply himself to the problem of providing equipment and finance for the small non-fletton producers on whom so


much depends if we are to get the brick production we need?

Mr. Eccles: I am considering that, but the May figures were the best ever.

Cement and Plaster Board Prices

Mr. Mulley: asked the Minister of Works if he will state the reductions in the price of cement and plaster board which have followed reductions in the cost of paper since 11th March, 1952.

Mr. Eccles: In addition to the reduction in the price of cement by 3s. a ton on 3rd June over most of the United Kingdom, I am informed that another reduction will be made as soon as the very considerable stocks of paper bought at high prices have been exhausted. I am also informed that there has been no recent change in the price of plaster board, and that an increase in net costs has more than offset the reduction in the price of paper.

Mr. Mulley: Will the Minister give some details of the additional costs which plaster board manufacturers have incurred, because I think he will agree that the cost of paper lining is a substantial part of the cost of plaster board? On many occasions the manufacturers claim increases, and this is one of the reasons given for them.

Mr. Eccles: The additional cost, which is 2.9d. per yard, appears to be largely due to wages, transport and some decline in turnover, which naturally puts up the cost per unit.

Oral Answers to Questions — PALACE OF WESTMINSTER MODEL (REMOVAL)

Colonel Clarke: asked the Minister of Works whether, in view of the closing to visitors of the Lower Waiting Hall, he will have the model of the old Houses of Parliament transferred to the Royal Gallery.

Mr. Eccles: Arrangements have been made for this to be done as soon as the Royal Gallery has been cleaned and decorated this summer.

Colonel Clarke: May I say how much those who are endeavouring to explain to visitors the real history of the Palace

of Westminster will appreciate this removal?

Mr. Eccles: This gives them a chance of doing what they did before.

Oral Answers to Questions — KOREA (VISIT OF MINISTER OF DEFENCE)

Mr. Driberg: asked the Prime Minister how soon he expects to receive a report on the situation in the Far East from the Minister of Defence and the Minister of State; and in what form this report will be made available to Parliament.

The Prime Minister (Mr.WinstonChurchill): Statements will be made in both Houses of Parliament on Tuesday next, 1st July.

Mr. Driberg: Will the statement include some reference to, or can the Prime Minister say anything now about, this morning's very serious news of the bombing of targets on the Yalu River, which even General MacArthur never attacked? Can he say whether that action was taken with the knowledge and approval of Her Majesty's Government?

The Prime Minister: I have a Private Notice Question dealing with that which I will answer when it is asked.

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Prime Minister to what extent the Minister of Defence visited the battle zone in Korea in his capacity as a Field Marshal on the active list.

The Prime Minister: My noble Friend visited Korea as Minister of Defence. As is well-known a Field Marshal is permanently on the active list without necessarily having executive military command.

Mr. Wyatt: Is the Prime Minister aware that many soldiers who might wish to put legitimate grievances to a Minister of Defence who is a civilian are not likely to do so when they find that the visiting Minister of Defence is not only a "brass hat" but the biggest "brass hat" of all? Does he not think it would be far more in accordance with our constitution if the Minister of Defence, if he wishes to pursue a political career, were to resign altogether from the Army?

The Prime Minister: I think it rather unfortunate that a young promising Member who has held office in the War Office should use a somewhat disparaging term, like "brass hats," about many of the distinguished, able and agreeable officers with whom he must have worked.

Mr. Wyatt: Does not the Prime Minister understand that what I am concerned about is not the merits of Field Marshal Alexander, on which we all agree, but the constitutional point involved in having a Minister of Defence who is also a Field Marshal and who, instead of divesting himself of his military rank, still wears the uniform of a Field Marshal when he visits the troops.

The Prime Minister: I do not think there is really any very serious issue involved. Precedents for the appointment of Field Marshals to high Cabinet positions exist—for instance, Lord Kitchener—and they were approved by the House. I cannot feel that any serious difficulty is likely to arise. I certainly think—I thought so before Field Marshal Alexander departed on his mission—that he should not go into the actual battle zone without wearing the uniform which he has had the honour to wear and sustain through so many years.

Mr. Bellenger: As the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, does he not recollect the incident when he went, as Secretary of State for War, to Field Marshal French and also donned his uniform, and the discomfort and embarrassment that caused on that occasion?

The Prime Minister: In quoting a precedent to illustrate a point of principle one cannot be sure that all the circumstances connected with the previous incident have actually been parallelled by what has happend on the latest occasion.

Oral Answers to Questions — HORSE SLAUGHTERING (INQUIRIES)

Sir R. Cary: asked the Prime Minister if his attention has been drawn to the confusion of the law and the anomalies which exist in regard to the slaughtering of horses; and if, in view of the fact that five Government Departments are involved in this matter, he will order an official Government inquiry to be made into the flow of horses and

donkeys into slaughterhouses, and to make recommendations to amend the law and indict such evil practices as come to light.

The Prime Minister: Everyone will, I am sure, agree that the fullest safeguards should be provided to avoid any cruelty in the transport of horses for slaughter and in the slaughterhouses and knackers' yards.
An inquiry into the trade in horses for slaughter and export was conducted by a Departmental Committee under Lord Rosebery's Chairmanship whose report was published in March, 1950. Effect has been given to many of the recommendations of that Committee but not to the recommendation that all central government functions in relation to horse slaughterhouses and knackers' yards be allotted to one Ministry. I have given directions that this question should be considered as one of urgency.
Her Majesty's Government have also decided to hold a further immediate inquiry to ascertain whether the report of the Rosebery Committee needs to be brought up to date.
Meanwhile the Minister of Food in the exercise of his powers under Section 8 of the Food and Drugs Act, 1938, will amend the Public Health (Meat) Regulations so that any person proposing to slaughter a horse will be under an obligation to inform the local authority in advance and will be liable to penalties if he fails to do so.

Sir R. Cary: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his most helpful answer will go a long way to allay the anxieties felt in all quarters of the House about this matter? Quite apart from the cruelty which can be suffered by animals if they fall into the wrong hands, one of the greatest dangers confronting us is the depopulation of these islands of good working horses and sturdy ponies and donkeys. Will not this help to build up one of the most dangerous gaps in our defences?

Mr. Peter Freeman: As there were about 1¼ million horses in this country only 25 years ago and there are only 400,000 today, will the right hon. Gentleman consider registering all horses before they are extinct and making it obligatory for permission to be sought from the local authorities before horses are slaughtered?

The Prime Minister: I have always considered that the substitution of the internal combustion engine for the horse marked a very gloomy milestone in the progress of mankind.

Mr. Stokes: Is the Prime Minister aware that the abattoir in this country where the "Manchester Guardian" report alleged that these abominations were carried on has been extremely difficult to discover? Will it be laid down that, when having horses slaughtered, people must say where they are sending them to be slaughtered?

The Prime Minister: I think there is complete agreement in the House that this matter must be pursued with vigilance and vigour.

Oral Answers to Questions — CROPS, KEVINGTON PARK

Sir Waldron Smithers: Might I ask your guidance, Mr. Speaker. This morning I had an urgent telephone message informing me that Kevington Park, which is now designated for a building estate, is being ploughed up. Today they are beginning to plough up eight acres of wheat, eight acres of potatoes and eight acres of raspberries. Can nothing be done to stop that at any rate until these crops are harvested? Might I ask what action I can take, because local feeling is very strong on this happening, in view of the food shortage?

Mr. Speaker: I understand from the hon. Member that the work of ploughing up has already started. I can only advise him to get in touch with the Ministers responsible as soon as he can.

Sir W. Smithers: I have, but they cannot do anything.

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid I cannot either.

KOREA (AIR ATTACK, YALU RIVER)

Mr. Sydney Silverman: (by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister whether he has any statement to make to the House concerning the attack by 500 aeroplanes under United Nations command upon power stations upon the Korean—Manchurian frontier serving the needs of Manchuria.

The Prime Minister: As the House is aware, it is the policy of the United Nations Command to limit hostilities to Korea. While there has not been much ground fighting in the past few months, air operations by United Nations forces have continued with the entirely legitimate object of decreasing the enemy war potential in Korea. Attacks such as those now reported do not appear to us to involve any extension of the operations hitherto pursued or to go beyond the discretionary authority vested in the United Nations Supreme Commander. So far as Her Majesty's Government are concerned, there has been no change of policy.

Mr. Silverman: Might I ask the right hon. Gentleman three short supplementary questions arising out of that statement? First, is he not aware that every point in dispute in the armistice negotiations has already been agreed on, except one, and on that point the Foreign Secretary told the House last week that he had every hope that agreement would be reached? Secondly, does he think that so extensive an operation as this in this place, affecting as it does places outside Korea, is likely to lead or could lead to an extension of hostilities which all sensible people in the world are doing their best to avoid? Thirdly, will he say whether the Minister of Defence, on his recent visit to the United Nations Command, was told about this forthcoming operation and whether he expressed any opinion about it?

The Prime Minister: I can only say that I am aware of what has been said by the Foreign Secretary in the House. As to the second question, that really is not a matter on which I have any means of giving an outside judgment at this moment. On the third question, I will talk to Lord Alexander when he comes home and find out, but we have not had any notification of any change in the policy which hitherto has been pursued, nor have we made any ourselves. I cannot feel that any serious departure in principle has been made or, if it had been made, that we should not have been consulted upon it.

Mr. C. R. Attlee: Has the Prime Minister considered that this is one of the matters on which there should have been consultations with others who are concerned in the actual fighting in Korea and


that hitherto, although there has been bombing of purely military targets, and on the bridges over the Yalu River, this represents destruction of very important establishments which affect the whole of Manchuria, and that that kind of policy is largely one that should not be embarked upon without full consultation, especially in view of the fact that the discussions for an armistice are now taking place?

The Prime Minister: As I have said, there is no change in policy so far as Her Majesty's Government are concerned.

Mr. Aneurin Bevan: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that he told the House not long ago that his Government were following the policy laid down by the previous Government? The policy laid down by the previous Government was to let the fighting in Korea die away as much as possible. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] This was the policy stated by the late Mr. Ernest Bevin in order to facilitate negotiations and these negotiations have been facilitated up to this point and now are deeply prejudiced. Is the right hon. Gentleman further aware that a spokesman of the Pentagon stated:
We now realise that the best chance of breaking the deadlock at Panmunjom is to hit the enemy with all the force at our command.
He described the raid, which is reported to have wiped out five large hydro-electric plants along the Yalu River servicing North Korea and parts of Manchuria, as part of a "get-tough" policy in the military as well as in the political field. As this is not only military action but political as well, will the right hon. Gentleman direct his attention to what he said in the House in April last year when, in reply to my right hon. Friend who was then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, he said:
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that there is general agreement on this side of the House with what he calls the traditional view that the constitutional and civil authorities should control the actions of military commanders?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th April, 1951; Vol. 486; c. 1028–29.]
As this action has a declared political intention, is it not, therefore, a complete departure from the traditional policy of the Government, and ought not the

Government to consider seriously the conseqences to world peace of irresponsible action of this sort?

The Prime Minister: The United Nations have delegated to the United States the duty and the burden of appointing the Supreme Commander in Korea. Discussions on various points have taken place from time to time between the Governments. In the time of the late Administration, these discussions authorised bombing, in certain circumstances, beyond the line of the Yalu River. There also have been occasions when this area of North Korea has been bombed by the United States forces, for example, in July, 1951, after the armistice negotiations had begun.
These power stations contribute, of course, to the Communist war effort in Korea. Among other things, they supply power to aerodromes in Manchuria from which Communist aircraft operate in Korea. Therefore, it seems that the matters are those which primarily fall within the purview of the Supreme Commander of the United Nations. Of course, when these matters occur, careful consideration is given to them by all the Governments who are concerned—[HON. MEMBERS: "Afterwards."]—and who are responsible in the matter.
I am advised that there is no obligation on the United Nations Command to consult us, as regards operations conducted within Korea, but it does not at all follow that we cannot discuss our affairs in an intimate and friendly manner with the United States or with other nations. I really do not think there should be any belief in the House that any change or alteration has taken place in the broad limits of policy pursued by this Government and the one which preceded it.

Mr. Attlee: The right hon. Gentleman has spoken of differences in policy pursued by the Government. This is an action taken which, in the opinion of many of us, runs contrary to the general line which has been pursued. While there is no obligation laid down for consultation there has, in fact, in my experience, been consultation on every point at which there was a political consideration impinging on the military. Surely this is one of those occasions when there should have been a full consultation.

The Prime Minister: No consultation with Her Majesty's Government has taken place, but we naturally will inform ourselves upon the whole matter.

Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: While we all recognise that the arrangements made for the command in Korea were imposed by the circumstances of the attack in June, 1950, and while we all feel that the nations owe a great debt of gratitude to the United States for what they have done, is it not now becoming clear—this is just one more event which makes it clear—that we need new military and political arrangements for the conduct of operations in Korea?

Mr. Fitzroy Maclean: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that all past experience shows that the best way of dealing with flagrant aggression is to hit the aggressors hard? Will he not also agree that such a policy is much more likely to lead to the conclusion of a quick armistice?

The Prime Minister: My hon. and gallant Friend does not carry me wholly with him in his general statement. We are in an extremely difficult and delicate position certainly, in that the whole of this Korean war is being carried forward during armistice negotiations, through which we have suffered serious disadvantage. We are in great difficulty. We also must remember that operations have been entrusted by the United Nations to a Supreme Commander of the United States. I am not going to be drawn into saying anything which will in any way be taken as a reflection upon the Commander or will embarrass him in the action which he may think it necessary to take. We naturally reserve all our rights, as a friendly ally, for making representations which may be thought desirable.

Mr. E. Shinwell: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he can recall the suggestions, which were made two or three weeks ago during the armistice negotiations when it was thought that prospects were not too rosy for a successful conclusion of those negotiations, that he might take measures to bring about a conference of the United Nations organisation, or at any rate of those nations associated with it who are participating in the Korean struggle? He then

thought it would be unwise. Would it not be wise in these very dangerous circumstances, when there is a prospect of this affair merging into a full-scale offensive, or a full-scale war, to suggest to the United Nations and the other nations concerned that a conference might be convened now to reconsider the whole position?

The Prime Minister: This is a grave and far-reaching question, which should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Harold Davies: It is the wish of the British people.

Mr. Shinwell: The Prime Minister has suggested that this is a far-reaching question which might be addressed to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. As that right hon. Gentleman is not present, and if the Prime Minister cannot give an answer at this stage, will he address himself to the subject and furnish an answer to the House at a very early stage?

The Prime Minister: The facts are not known at all with any definiteness. The facts are no doubt disputed and conflicting. It would be a great pity for us to commit ourselves to statements of a far-reaching character while we are only informed as we are at the present moment.

Mr. Attlee: This is a very serious matter. I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9, to call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely,
the air attack on power plants of the Yalu River which took place yesterday, during the period of the negotiations for an armistice.

Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Attlee) has moved the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9, to call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the air attack on the power plants of the Yalu River which took place in Korea yesterday during the period of negotiations for an armistice.
There is no doubt about its importance, but my difficulty with this Motion is that it seems to me that an authority other than Her Majesty's Government is


responsible for the decision that has been made. The Prime Minister has said that there has been no change of policy on the part of Her Majesty's Government, and it is clear from what I have heard of the facts that this action was taken under the United Nations Command—as I read the Press, which is all the information I have—entirely by United States Forces.

Mr. Attlee: May I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that we have our responsibilities as members of the United Nations and as taking part in these operations in Korea? Therefore, this House is entitled to take into account any action here which would have its repercussions on the position of our troops. Although one cannot say that it strictly comes under a particular Minister, I think the point has not been considered before that we are participating with the United Nations under our obligations under the Charter, and therefore a responsibility does lie on our Government in this respect.

The Prime Minister: May I submit also to you upon that point, Mr. Speaker, that an Adjournment is not customarily given when the facts are in dispute or before they are available?

Hon. Members: Oh!

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House will keep order. I want to hear this matter discussed.

Mr. Bevan: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the agreement which he gave to the statement of my right hon. Friend who was then the Secretary of State for War included these words:
He was told that operations"—
this is, the Commander of the United Nations Forces in Korea—
should not be undertaken which extended the conflict beyond Korean territory, and that it was the intention of the United Nations to localise hostilities in Korea, and therefore that it was not their intention to become involved in general hostilities with China. And he was told that the powers of the Commander of the United Nations forces to conduct operations"——

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: On a point of order——

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are on a point of order at the moment.

Mr. Bevan: —"on behalf of the United Nations were limited to Korea and were to be executed within the framework of declared United Nations Policy."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th April, 1951; Vol. 486, c. 1027.]
Is it not also a fact that the spokesman of the United Nations in the meantime has taken pride in the fact that, as a consequence of the destruction of these stations, thousands of square miles of territory inside Manchuria—[An HON. MEMBER: "What is the point of order?"] If you want to go to war, why not say so? [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Really, this is becoming quite disorderly.

The Prime Minister: The Prime Minister rose——

Mr. Speaker: Does the Prime Minister rise to a point of order?

Mr. Bevan: I am on a point of order.

Mr. Speaker: Well, it is getting very long.

The Prime Minister: Could I ask you, Sir—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Is the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) speaking to a point of order?

Mr. Bevan: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Member will forgive me if I find it difficult to relate what he was saying to a point of order. Will he tell the House his point?

Mr. Bevan: With respect, I am calling your attention to a statement made by a Minister to the House of Commons indicating the scope of our responsibility in Korea, which is the issue. Is it not a fact that the lives and welfare of British subjects are put in jeopardy in Korea by the extension of the war in this case, and have we, therefore, not got a direct responsibility for looking after their lives?

The Prime Minister: On a point of order in connection with the Motion for the Adjournment. May I submit respectfully to you, Sir, that there is not the slightest desire on the part of the Government to avoid a debate upon this matter. Indeed, we think it might be not only useful but necessary. It certainly should be. I can give the House every guarantee that full opportunity will be offered for debating this matter.
Could I submit to you, however, that as there certainly will be a debate on this matter in the near future, when we shall have the advantage of having the Minister of Defence and the Minister of State back in this country, and shall have ascertained the facts which we do not know now and which are in doubt or in dispute, that this is not an occasion for using the special machinery of the Adjournment of the House which is reserved for exceptional occasions?

Brigadier Clarke: May I refer to the previous question put to the Prime Minister? A number of hon. Members on this side of the House were jumping to their feet, trying to catch your eye in order to ask a Question, and only one hon. Member on this side compared with 15 or 20 on that side were allowed to put a Question. Is that in order?

Mr. Speaker: I beg the House to take this matter calmly. I can quite see the importance of it. I have already drawn the attention of the House to the Rule which filled my mind with doubt, namely, that a Motion of this kind to be in order must be the responsibility of a Minister or Government. Erskine May has numerous examples where the executive act complained of was done by an authority not His Majesty's Government, when the Motion has been in the past refused. There is also this difficulty about this particular Motion, namely, that from what I hear the facts are still in dispute. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Mr. Attlee.

Mr. Attlee: Mr. Attlee rose——

Hon. Members: Order.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must be the judge of whether I give way or not.

Mr. Attlee: I understand that a statement has been made from the American Defence Department. Surely that is a sufficient basis——

Mr. Speaker: I should not have thought that Her Majesty's Government were responsible for statements made by the Americans. What I suggest in the Ruling I have come to and given—I hope it is right—is, following precedent, that as the facts are not clear, I shall not allow this Motion at this moment, without prejudice to it being raised later when the facts become clearer.

Mr. S. Silverman: Further to that point, Mr. Speaker, may I draw your attention respectfully to two points with regard to your Ruling? One is on the question whether the facts are in dispute or not. With regard to that, the Prime Minister——

Mr. Speaker: The facts are not clear.

Mr. Silverman: Yes, Sir, but with regard to that the Prime Minister was good enough to give a very full answer to the Question which I put down, with your leave, by Private Notice. That answer contains a number of facts of which the Prime Minister was good enough to place the House in possession. I submit that those facts are known, those facts are clear, and those facts are sufficient to found such a Motion as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has proposed.
With regard to the other point about the responsibilities, it is not the case that the House is dealing with a situation which did not exist when the learned editor of Erskine May wrote his book, namely, a situation in which there is an international authority operating with the consent and support of the Government of the United Kingdom, and which would lose its authority to act if that consent and authority of the United Kingdom were to be withdrawn? If it were to be ruled that nothing done by the United Nations Command in those circumstances could result in a debate in this House, we should be parting with the right to criticise the Government or to ask the Government questions about matters with which our own nation had been involved.
This particular matter—the bombing of these power stations—happens to be the very event which brought China into these hostilities. Therefore, since the question of peace or war and our involvement in peace or war may depend upon the continuance or the cessation of these operations, how can it be said that it is a matter for which the Government have no responsibility at all?

Mr. Speaker: I have listened very carefully to what has been said. I am not by any means saying that the action of the United Nations Command cannot be raised in debate in the House—I have never said such a thing. I am only saying that this particular form of the interruption of business for the purposes of a


debate on the Adjournment is hedged around with certain rules which it is my duty to apply as fairly as I can.
Although it is true that even the present edition of Erskine May did not contemplate a situation such as that which confronts us today, I have to try to apply the principles of the past to the facts of the present. I have come to the decision which I have, and I have given it the best consideration I can. I hope the House will accept it.

Mr. Bevan: On a point of order. You have been kind enough, Mr. Speaker, to say, in the course of your remarks, that you are prepared to give further consideration to this very important matter. Is it not a fact that this House has conscripted young men and sent them from their homes to Korea, and that questions are asked normally every week about what happens to those young men in Korea? Can it conceivably be said that we should wash our hands of what may happen to those young men as a consequence of what is happening?

The Prime Minister: Further to the point of order. Am I right in assuming, Mr. Speaker, that your Ruling was given not in regard to debates on these subjects in the House, but as to the use of the particular procedure of the Adjournment? Is it not a fact that the Opposition have many Supply Days at their disposal, including one tomorrow, which would enable the subject to be discussed?

Mr. Speaker: I wish to make it perfectly clear—I hope I have done so—that I am not in any way canvassing the right of the House to debate these matters. I am only dealing with the particular problem with which I have been suddenly confronted: namely, the application of this Standing Order, which permits of the interruption of the Orders of the Day.

Mr. Manuel: Surely it is important enough.

Mr. Speaker: I have never disputed its importance.

Mr. Crossman: May I make one more respectful submission, Mr. Speaker, on the point of order? I gather that the doubt is whether the facts are clear.

Clearly, sufficient facts cannot all be clear, but surely sufficient facts are clear to justify the Motion—the fact that the raid took place, the fact that our Government were not consulted, and the fact that the Americans have officially announced that this means a change of political policy. I ask very respectfully how, in view of those three indisputable facts, one can doubt whether the facts are clear.
The second submission that I wish to make is on Ministerial responsibility. The Minister of Defence has been sent to Korea, with the good will of the whole House, to investigate a problem which was profoundly disturbing. Whether he has been consulted by the Americans or not, clearly he is the Minister responsible. I cannot see how, on that view, the Motion is not urgently necessary and does not fulfil the requirements, both as regards the facts which are clear and as regards Ministerial responsibility.

Mr. Edward Davies: Before you give your answer, Mr. Speaker, you have ruled that you would not object to debate on matters of the United Nations with which this country and many other countries obviously are concerned. Surely the Ruling you are now making is not to say that, whatever the circumstances in the United Nations and its affairs, we have not the right as a House to move the Adjournment under some circumstances of an extremely urgent nature and different from these which may arise. Surely you are not ruling that in those circumstances, which, I agree, are hypothetical, we should not have the right to move the Adjournment of the House.

Mr. J. Hudson: On that point——

Mr. Speaker: Order. On this matter, I think I have already covered in my Ruling the points that have been made. I am not disputing the importance of this matter; the House must realise that. As to Ministerial responsibility, I heard the Prime Minister's answer say that there was no change of policy on the part of the Government. As to the statement that was made in America about it, that is a statement of American attitude and not of Her Majesty's Government. As to the sufficiency of the facts, what I have said is that the facts are not clear and that that is a ground for refusing the Motion.
I am not saying that the facts as stated in answer to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), who said that the facts stated by the Prime Minister were clear in themselves, were not clear, but that they were not sufficient. The Prime Minister said that everything was not known about it, and I think it would be best to postpone this matter without prejudice to its being raised upon the Adjournment again if further facts become known and become clear. I hope that the House will accept this.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose——

Mr. Speaker: Order. Somebody has to decide these matters and take responsibility for them.

Mr. Bevan: I am not proposing——

Viscount Cranborne: Is it in order, Mr. Speaker, for hon. Members opposite to go on questioning your decision in this way?

Mr. Bevan: May I, then, respectfully, through you, Sir, ask the Prime Minister whether, in view of the necessity of maintaining the utmost amount of support in this country for United Nations actions, we should have as early a debate as possible before there is further disquietude over what has happened in Korea? [HON. MFMBERS: "What about tomorrow?"] Would it not be the Prime Minister's duty in these circumstances to have the debate as early as possible to clear up all these matters?

The Prime Minister: The matters of business are in the hands of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, but it is perfectly clear that nothing could prevent the Opposition from asking, through the usual channels, for a debate on this matter tomorrow. We would have no objection to the debate, although I would rather it were delayed until next week. My arguments on procedure have been devoted solely to the technical point, in which, I gather, we are sustained by Erskine May, in regard to the use of the Adjournment for a matter about which the facts are in dispute and for which an early opportunity for discussion is inevitable.

Mr. Hale: May I ask your guidance, Mr. Speaker, on a purely ancillary problem? In view of the declaration of the Prime Minister impliedly disclaiming

responsibility for British troops in Korea, I would have sought, had that position been accepted, to move the Adjournment of the House to call the attention of the House to the declaration that British troops were serving in a war in respect of which we were not entitled to ask a question about their lives or their future.
Whether that be right or wrong, it is clear that under Standing Order No. 9 I should have had to do that forthwith. May I, therefore, seek your indulgence, as you have said that this question can stand over—I do not challenge that for a moment—to preserve my rights to take that course, notwithstanding that I have not done it forthwith, in the event of that situation arising?

Mr. Speaker: I certainly note what the hon. Member says. He will be damnified by no action of mine if these hypothetical circumstances do transpire.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Attlee: May I ask whether the Leader of the House can state the business for today.

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Harry Crookshank): We desire today to obtain the Second Reading of the Pensions (Increase) Bill and the Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution, as well as the concluding stages of the Agriculture (Ploughing Grants) Bill.
The Motion relating to the Licensed Premises in New Towns Bill will not be moved today. We propose to take this on Thursday, after the other business already announced for consideration on that day.

Mr. Bing: In view of the fact that such a Motion has not been moved since 1917 and that it is described in Erskine May as a "most unusual occurrence," will the right hon. Gentleman give an adequate opportunity and reasonable time to debate this remarkable departure from Parliamentary tradition?

Mr. Crookshank: We propose to take it after other business on Thursday.
Proceedings of the Committee on Pensions (Increase) [Money] and on the Agriculture (Ploughing Grants) Bill exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. Crookshank.]

LICENSING AT AIRPORTS

4.10 p.m.

Sir Ian Fraser: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Licensing Act, 1921, and to exempt from the provisions of Part I of the said Act the sale and supply of intoxicating liquor to passengers arriving and departing by air at international airports.
The purpose of this Bill is to provide a convenience and amenities to those persons who leave this country by air or arrive here by air at international airports. There are only four of these international airports in the country, at Croydon, London, Northolt and Prestwick, but there are 15 or 20 other airports which are used from time to time.
Everyone is familiar with the fact that when one proceeds by air there may be delay, due to engine trouble or fog, which may prevent the aeroplane from leaving for periods varying from half an hour to two or three hours, and it is not possible to get back from the other side of the Customs and passport barrier in order to get a drink without great inconvenience. Those who travel by sea are not subject to this difficulty.
There are many precedents whereby Parliament in the past has made special arrangements for special sections of the community in the matter of permitting them to drink at unusual hours. There were the special arrangements made during the time of the Festival of Britain. There is the special law in Scotland which enables a person who is a bona fide traveller in certain circumstances to have a drink at any time of the day or night.
There are the special arrangements at Covent Garden and in fairs and there are the special arrangements in the House of Commons where one may engage in a serious debate or take a flight of fancy fortified by an alcoholic drink. But anyone who travels by air from this land, or arrives in this country by air, cannot get a drink. I am informed that these are the only international airports in Europe, and probably among the very few in the whole world, where that situation arises.
My short Bill proposes to amend the Licensing Act, 1921. Anyone familiar with that Act will know that it regulates the hours and conditions for consuming

alcoholic beverages. In Section 5 it provides six exemptions to the general rule that beverages shall be sold only at certain times. These exemptions are available for publicans supplying drinks to their friends, for persons in clubs, for soldiers, sailors and airmen in canteens, and so on.
This small Bill proposes that an additional exemption shall be given, namely, exemption (g), which shall say that a person travelling from or arriving at an international airport shall be able to get an alcoholic drink at any hour of the day or night, subject to certain provisos. The provisos are, first, that the international airport shall be defined by the Secretary of State; secondly, that this shall only be permitted if the place is a place in which an ordinary licence for drink can normally be obtained; and thirdly and most important, the part of the place in which the drink can be obtained is narrowly confined in the Bill as that part of the aerodrome beyond the barrier at which the Customs and passport people cease to function.
One may say that when a person has been through the Customs and passport inspection and is beyond that barrier, he is technically out of Britain, although he has not actually flown away. Were he going by sea he would have gone on to the ship, but as the procedure is different for air travel, he waits until the aeroplane is ready to go; and it is during that time that he may want a drink, and I am asking that he may be allowed to have one.
There is no loophole here. I am sure that the House will agree, if they are good enough to allow me to introduce the Bill so that they may see it printed, that it provides no loophole. Only this very limited number of persons will be able to get a drink under these conditions. I may say that the British Travel and Holiday Association, the B.O.A.C. and the B.E.A.C. support the Bill.

Mr. Cecil Poole: What does the hon. Member mean by saying that the B.O.A.C. and the B.E.A.C. support the Bill? Does he mean that he has the authority of the executives to say that they support the Bill? What does he mean, because that is contrary to my information?

Sir I. Fraser: They have helped me to prepare the text.

Mr. Poole: Who are "they"?

Sir I. Fraser: The officials of the Corporations. I have reason to think that those great air Corporations would very much welcome such amenities.
There are some who do not believe in drink at all, but I do not think they would wish to stop others who want a drink. It has long been a custom of this House to make available to citizens at special times and on special occasions some of these small freedoms. This matter cannot really be judged unless the text of my small Bill is seen. I confidently ask the House, therefore, to allow me to introduce the Bill so that it may be read the First time and criticised by all who are interested on all sides of the House.

4.18 p.m.

Mr. C. W. Gibson: I ask the House to refuse permission to introduce this Bill on the ground, among others, that it is quite unnecessary and there is not the slightest sign of any public opinion in favour of it anywhere. To take one point mentioned by the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser), my information is that the Corporations themselves have not pressed for it. I find it a little difficult to accept the reasons given by the hon. Member for people needing a drink when an aeroplane has been delayed and arrives late. They can get all they want on the aeroplane.

Sir I. Fraser: They are not on the aeroplane then.

Mr. Gibson: They can get all they want on the aeroplane which arrives late. If they are waiting owing to bad weather, they can get all they want on the aerodrome, within permitted hours. I see no reason why aerodromes, even designated international aerodromes, should be given special facilities to sell alcoholic drinks outside permitted hours. The Measure would be extremely difficult to administer. Are we to confine the sale of the drinks, of whatever kind, solely to those going on board the aeroplane or those who have just got off it?

Sir I. Fraser: Yes.

Mr. Gibson: How could one keep their friends out? Could one prevent the staff from getting a drink outside permitted

hours? Any of us who have had experience in managing clubs where there is a drinking bar know how difficult that problem is.
This problem has already been discussed very fully by the Royal Commission on Licensing, which met between 1929 and 1931. That Commission made a very definite and straightforward decision and recommendation to the House on this question. In paragraph 814 the Commission stated:
In discussing drunkenness in connection with road transport, we expressed strong approval of the practice of many transport companies in requiring total abstinence from their drivers during hours of duty. We do not know whether air transport companies"—
as they were then—
impose any such rule upon their pilots and other operating personnel; but it seems to us no less desirable, and indeed of even greater importance, that they should.
Then the Commission said, in paragraph 816:
In the second place, it was urged that passengers who are subject to air sickness often wish to obtain intoxicants before departure or after arrival: and that supply should be lawful in such cases irrespective of hour"—
and I understand the hon. Gentleman to say that his Bill would provide that they could get drink irrespective of the hours at present laid down by law. The Report went on:
On principle, we are 10th to introduce exceptions to the general application of the system of permitted hours; and we are not satisfied that any sufficient case has been made out for an exception in this instance.
That is a specific reference to the provision of alcoholic drinks at aerodromes outside permitted hours.

Mr. Poole: Will my hon. Friend answer this point, which may be of assistance to him? Is it not a fact that none of the crews on any of our airlines is allowed to take drink within eight hours of the take-off?

Mr. Gibson: I understand that is the rule, although I must confess I have not myself actually read that rule; but I have observed during air travel that the staff on the plane and at the aerodromes are very careful in conscientiously carrying out the rules about drink. It would seem to me, in view of the recommendations of that Commission which gave careful and full consideration to the matter raised by the proposed Bill, that the


House would be doing wrong to throw over their advice and to allow this Bill to be introduced, with the possibility that it might get through under the procedure of this House.
I think this is a case of the door being pushed open a little bit. I am sure that if this were allowed to be done, it would not be long before the door was opened a little wider. There are all kinds of cases which could be quoted, such as that

of long-distance coach and rail travellers. They could put an equally good case for being permitted to obtain drink outside the permitted hours while the rest of us can obtain it only within those hours. From every point of view, it seems that there is no case whatever for this to be permitted, and I hope the House will reject the Motion.

Question put.

The House divided: Ayes, 173; Noes, 173.

Division No. 183.]
AYES
[4.26 p.m.


Alport, C. J. M.
Harden, J. R. E.
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.


Amory, Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Hare, Hon. J. H
Partridge, E.


Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.
Hay, John
Perkins, W. R. D.


Arbuthnot, John
Heald, Sir Lionel
Peyton, J. W. W.


Ashton, H. (Chelmsford)
Higgs, J. M. C.
Plummer, Sir Leslie


Aston, Hon. J. J. (Plymouth, Sutton)
Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)


Astor, Hon. W. W. (Bucks, Wycombe)
Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.


Baldwin, A. E.
Holmes, Sir Stanley (Harwich)
Profumo, J. D.


Banks, Col. C.
Hopkinson, Henry
Rayner, Brig. R.


Barber, A. P. L.
Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.
Redmayne, M.


Barlow, Sir John
Horobin, I. M.
Renton, D. L. M.


Baxter, A. B.
Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence
Roberts, Peter (Heeley)


Beach, Maj. Hicks
Houghton, Douglas
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Beamish, Maj. Tufton
Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)
Roper, Sir Harold


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)
Savory, Prof. Sir Douglas


Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Hurd, A. R.
Schofield, Lt.-Col. W. (Rochdale)


Boothby, R. J. G.
Hutchison, Lt.-Com. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)
Scott, R. Donald


Bossom, A. C.
Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.
Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.


Bowles, F. G.
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.
Johnson, Eric (Btackley)
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)


Boyle, Sir Edward
Keeling, Sir Edward
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)


Braine, B. R.
Kerr, H. W. (Cambridge)
Snadden, W. MoN.


Brooke, Henry (Hampstead)
King, Dr. H. M.
Spearman, A. C. M.


Brooman-White, R. C.
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Spens, Sir Patrick (Kensington, S.)


Browne, Jack (Govan)
Langford-Holt, J. A.
Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard


Burden, F. F. A
Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.
Stevens, G. P.


Butcher, H. W.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)


Cary, Sir Robert
Linstead, H. N.
Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)


Channon, H.
Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Churchill, Rt. Hon. W. S.
Longden, Gilbert (Herts, S.W.)
Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)


Clarke, Col. Ralph (East Grinstead)
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)
Studholme, H. G


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W.)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Summers, G. S.


Clyde, Rt. Hon. J. L.
Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.
Sutcliffe, H.


Colegate, W. A.
McAdden, S. J.
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)


Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
McCorquodale, Rt. Hon. M. S
Thorneycroft, Rt. Hn. Peter (Monmouth)


Cranborne, Viscount
Mackeson, Brig. H. R.
Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N.


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
McKibbin, A. J.
Thurtle, Ernest


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
McKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Tilney, John


Crouch, R F.
Maclean, Fitzroy
Touche, Sir Gordon


Cuthbert, W. N.
Macleod, Rt. Hon. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Darling, Sir William (Edinburgh, S.)
MacLeod, John (Ross and Cromarty)
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


Davidson, Viscountess
Macpherson, Maj. Niall (Dumfries)
Vosper, D. F.


Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Donaldson, Cmdr. C E McA
Marshall, Sir Sidney (Sutton)
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)


Donner, P. W.
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Wellwood, W.


Drewe, G.
Mellor, Sir John
White, Baker (Canterbury)


Duncan, Capt. J. A L.
Molson, A. H. E.
Williams, Rt. Hon. Charles (Torquay)


Duthie, W. S.
Moore, Lt.-Col. Sir Thomas
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
Nabarro, G. D. N.
Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)


Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.
Nally, W.
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Fort, R.
Nicholls, Harmar
Wills, G.


Fraser, Sir Ian (Morecambe &amp; Lonsdale)
Nicholson, Godfrey (Famham)
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Gage, C. H.
Nicolson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E.)
Wood, Hon. R.


Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)
Noble, Cmdr. A. H. P.
York, C.


George, Rt. Hon. Maj. G. Lloyd
Nugent, G. R. H.



Glyn, Sir Ralph
Oakshott, H. D.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Godber, J. B.
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Antrim, N)
Mr. Roland Robinson and


Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.
Mr. Teeling.




NOES


Acland, Sir Richard
Hamilton, W. W
Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Hannan, W.
Pannell, Charles


Anderson, Alexander (Motherwell)
Hardy, E. A
Pargiter, G. A.


Attlee, Rt. Hon C R.
Hargreaves, A.
Paton, J.


Awbery, S. S.
Harrison, J. (Nottingham, E)
Pearson, A


Ayles, W. H.
Hastings, S.
Poole, C. C


Bacon, Miss Alice
Hayman, F. H.
Popplewell, E.


Balfour, A.
Henderson, Rt. Hon A. (Rowley Regis)
Price, Joseph T. (Westhoughton)


Bellenger, Rt. Hon F. J.
Holman, P.
Proctor, W. T.


Bence, C R.
Holmes, Horace (Hemsworth)
Rankin, John


Benson, G.
Hoy, J. H
Reid, William (Camlachie)


Black, C. W.
Hubbard, T. F.
Rhodes, H.


Blackburn, F.
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Richards, R.


Blyton, W. R.
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayreshire)
Robens, Rt. Hon. A.


Bowden, H. W
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Bowen, E. R.
Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)


Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Ross, William


Brook, Dryden (Halifax)
Irving, W. J (Wood Green)
Royle, C


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Janner, B.
Schofield, S. (Barnsley)


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Jeger, George (Goole)
Silverman, Julius (Erdington)


Burton, Miss F. E
Jeger, Dr. Santo (St. Pancras, S)
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)


Callaghan, L. J.
Jones, David (Hartlepool)
Slater, J


Champion, A. J
Jones, Frederick Elwyn (West Ham, S.)
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)


Chetwynd, G. R
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)


Clunie, J.
Keenan, W
Snow, J. W.


Coldrick, W.
Kinley, J.
Sorensen, R. W.


Cole, Norman
Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Sparks, J. A.


Collick, P. H.
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E)


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Lewis, Arthur
Stokes, Rt. Hon. R R


Crosland, C. A. R
Lindgren, G. S
Stross, Dr. Barnett


Daines, P.
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M
Sylvester, G. O.


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H
Llewellyn, D. T.
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Davies, E. Edward (Stoke, N)
Logan, D. G.
Taylor, Rt. Hon. Robert (Morpeth)


Davies, Harold (Leek)
McGhee, H. G.
Thomas, David (Aberdare)


Deer, G.
McInnes, J.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


Dodds, N. N.
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C
McLeavy, F.
Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)


Evans, Albert (Islington, S W)
MacMillan, M. K (Western Isles)
Timmons, J.


Ewart, R.
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Tomney, F


Fernyhough, E
Mainwaring, W. H
Viant, S. P.


Field, W. J
Manuel, A C.
Wade, D. W.


Finch, H. J.
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H A
Wallace, H W


Follick, M.
Messer, F.
Watkins, T. E.


Fool, M. M.
Mitchison, G. R
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Forman, J. C.
Monslow, W.
West, D. G.


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Moody, A. S.
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. John


Freeman, Peter (Newport)
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Garner-Evans, E. H.
Morrison, Rt. Hon H (Lewisham, S.)
Wigg, George


Glanville, James
Mort, D. L.
Wilkins, W. A.


Greenwood, Anthony (Rossendale)
Moyle, A.
Willey, Octavius (Cleveland)


Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
Mulley, F. W
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)


Grey, C. F
Murray, J. D.
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J
Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)


Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Oldfield, W. H.
Winterbottom, Ian (Nottingham, C.)


Grimond, J.
Oliver, G. H.
Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)


Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Orbach, M.
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Oswald, T.



Hall. John (Gateshead, W.)
Paling, Rt. Hon W (Dearne Valley)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:




Mr. James Hudson and Mr. Gibson


Question put, and agreed to.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew): As the numbers are equal, I shall vote "Aye" so that the House will have a further opportunity of considering the matter.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Ian Fraser, Mr. Roland Robinson, Mr. Edward Evans, Mr. William Teeling and Mr. John Rodgers.

LICENSING AT AIRPORTS BILL

"to amend the Licensing Act, 1921, and to exempt from the provisions of Part I of the said Act the sale and supply of intoxicating liquor to passengers arriving and departing by air at international airports, "presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, and to be printed. [Bill 119.]

TRANSPORT ACT (1947) AMENDMENT

4.35 p.m.

Major Sydney Markham: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend paragraph (iii) of subsection (2) of section two of the Transport Act, 1947.
I hope that this Bill will have a much more enthusiastic welcome than the last. My Bill is designed to amend the Transport Act, 1947, in one small and, I hope, practical way. It has no reference at all to those great issues of nationalisation, denationalisation or un-denationalisation which form the texture of political controversy, but it is simply to amend paragraph (iii) of subsection (2) of Section 2 of the Transport Act. It was this Section which laid down that the Transport Commission
shall not … construct, manufacture, or otherwise produce anything which is not required for use for the purposes of their undertaking.
My Bill is designed to add the words:
except for the purposes of national defence or as sub-contractors for the production of railway stock or equipment for the export trade.
I think it is well known in this House that the Act of 1947 has produced very great difficulties so far as concerns rearmament and the railway workshops. It has been the wish of all hon. Members on both sides of the House to have rearmament done in the workshops. The workshops have been anxious to do the work. The Minister has been anxious to place it there, and the only way in which it could be done was by invoking the very complicated method under Defence Regulation 55 (2A) which, to put it mildly, has been found so clumsy and laborious. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Smithers) pointed out on 31st March, it resulted in a considerable delay in a very vital piece of re-armament work going through.
Therefore, the first part of my Bill is designed to clear up this misunderstanding, this confusion, that has arisen and which was not foreseen when the Transport Act was introduced, although every hon. Member knew that during the war years, at any rate, the railways had rendered very great services by

creating material and providing stock not specifically for their own use.
The second part of the Bill is designed to allow the railways to become subcontractors for the production of railway stock or equipment for the export trade. This, again, is a return to pre-war normality. I do not think we can quarrel with that because that is a statement of fact. But at the moment, while the British Railways can give orders to the extent of millions of pounds to private enterprise, they are not allowed, under the Transport Act, 1947, to do a single piece of work for private enterprise in any way. They cannot sell a communication cord. They cannot sell a train lighting set or make a dynamo or assist in any way, even though the export trade of this country in this particular field of railway rolling stock and equipment may be very urgently in need of those parts which could be supplied by British Railways.
I hope that my Bill has been so carefully drawn that it will not raise any of these contentious issues as to whether State services should compete openly with private enterprise. This is drawn, I hope, in a way that will satisfy certainly all railway men in the House, and I hope all others.
Finally, I believe that the railway workshop capacity that we have in this country now is not being used sufficiently, and that that is very detrimental to the national interest. We should use that, and we should use it constructively for the good of all concerned, and especially for the defence programme and for the export trade. It is for these reasons that I hope the House will give me leave to bring in this Bill.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Major Sydney Markham, Mr. Norman Cole, Mr. Peter Smithers and Mr. J. A. Sparks.

TRANSPORT ACT (1947) AMENDMENT BILL

"to amend paragraph (iii) of subsection (2) of section two of the Transport Act, 1947," presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, and to be printed. [Bill 120.]

Orders of the Day — PENSIONS (INCREASE) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

4.41 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): I beg to Move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
In the course of his Budget speech, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said:
There is another class of pensioner I have had to think about—that is the public service pensioner—the retired school teacher, civil servant, local government officer, policeman, fireman and others, and also the long-service pensioner of Her Majesty's Forces. Some of these people were given some help under the Pensions (Increase) Acts of 1944 and 1947. But I am satisfied that the circumstances are such that some additional help is now called for, I am calling a conference of the authorities concerned to see what should be done. The measure of additional assistance should not, I consider, exceed 5s. to 7s. 6d. a week—say, up to a total of £20 a year."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th March, 1952; Vol. 497, c. 1301.]
This Bill is, of course, brought forward to implement that undertaking.
As my right hon. Friend then indicated, a number of discussions have taken place on this matter. I had a most helpful talk with the representatives of the T.U.C. and also with the representatives of the local authorities, who are, of course, very much concerned in this matter as a substantial part of the increases under this Bill fall upon them. We have also had the advantage of the views of the Staff Side of the National Whitley Council. All those bodies have given us very useful advice, but I do not think that I need to point out to the House that responsibility for the Measure as presented to this House is the responsibility of Her Majesty's Government.
Perhaps I might begin by describing the background. The pensions with which we are concerned under this Bill are, in general, what can be described as contractual pensions. Most of them are earned by service, and in some cases are contributed to, and are calculated not on the basis of subsistence or of need but on the basis of the salary earned, generally during the concluding years of an officer's career.
They are, that is to say, contractual pensions, not what one might broadly describe as social security pensions. It follows, therefore, that in strict principle there is a case for saying that such pensions ought not to be supplemented when the value of money changes. In point of fact, however, successive Governments, both in 1944 and in 1947, took the view that a strict application of that principle would result in very severe hardship, and particularly in hardship in connection with those pensioners who are at the bottom of the scale.
Consequently, in both those years—1944 and 1947—legislation was enacted to provide increases in respect of pensioners towards the bottom of the scale, and in both cases the arguments used by successive Governments in support of those Bills was that they were Measures for the relief of hardship. I ought to point out to the House that the principles followed in both those Measures, as well as a good deal of the machinery used in them, have been adopted in connection with the present Measure, and this Bill is put forward to the House by the Government on the basis that it is right for the Government, in its role of ex-employer, to relieve, or seek to relieve, real hardship among its ex-employees.
But, just as on the two previous occasions, this Bill is not brought forward as part of a general revision of pensions in the light of the changed value of money. Its aim is the lower one, if I may say so, the humbler one, of relieving real hardship among ex-servants of the State. Indeed, were it suggested that we should go further and review all pensions in the light of changing conditions and changing economic and financial circumstances, that would raise many problems, not least the problem of why former servants of the State, unlike their fellow citizens, should be insulated from the effect of the falling purchasing power of the £.
These great broad issues do not arise on this Bill. This is a Bill of more limited purpose. It works in this way: it leaves in full force the increases given under the 1947 Act, with which the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) was certainly very familiar at the time, and which he no doubt recalls in some detail today. But this Bill not only adds to the amounts paid to the beneficiaries of the 1947 Act; it also includes


certain additional categories to which I will refer in a moment.
The classes of people covered by this Bill are set out in detail in the First Schedule. All that I need do at this stage, therefore, is to summarise that Schedule by saying that they included retired members of the Civil Service and of staffs of local authorities, teachers, police and firemen. In addition, there are brought in for the first time pensioners who in 1947 were not Government pensioners but in respect of whom the Government have since, under other legislation, taken over the role of ex-employer.
That is to say, there are some pensioners of the voluntary hospitals who when they retired were pensioners of those hospitals. Those hospitals have since been taken over under the National Health Service Act, and consequently, though the Government never directly employed those people, they have taken over the role of ex-employer to them, and it was, therefore, thought right to bring those pensioners within the ambit of this Bill. The same is true of another category of people who were taken over under the National Insurance Act. They were former employees of some of the friendly and provident societies. Responsibility for their pensions was taken over under that Act.
The Bill does not deal directly with the position of retired members of the Armed Forces. The reason is that, by age-long custom, pensions of members of the Armed Forces have been dealt with not in legislation but under Prerogative Instrument. I can tell the House that my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for War, the First Lord of the Admiralty and my noble Friend the Secretary of State for Air intend to grant to retired officers and other ranks in that way increases in retired pensions similar to those proposed in this Bill.
Subject, I am told, to the relevant conditions, the full increases provided in this Bill in respect of civilians will be available to those Service pensioners—officers and other ranks—who were pensioned under the Regulations in force before 1st September, 1950, the date when a new system of Service pensions came into operation.
At this stage I ought perhaps to make it clear, because I have had a number

of inquiries on the matter, that the Bill does not cover former employees of the nationalised industries. The reason is that the nationalised industries are not Government Departments. Under the statutes put through by the late Government, they were set up for many purposes as independent trading organisations with a large degree of independence, and conditions of work, and so on, are negotiated direct by the boards with the trade unions concerned. To prevent any misunderstanding, in view of what is perhaps the peculiar position of the nationalised industries, I thought that I ought to make it clear that they do not come within the ambit of the Bill.
Clause 1 (2) sets out the income limits within which the pensioner has to be if he or she is to receive the increases given under this Bill. In computing the income of the pensioner for this purpose we shall preserve the provisions of the 1947 Act under which the first £52 of income is not taken into account. That disregard, to use the technical term, remains.

Mr. W. G. Cove: Instead of the means test.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If the hon. Gentleman wants to pursue that line and to say that it is a means test, it is of course, a means test which was imposed rather more rigidly by the late Administration.

Mr. Cove: That does not make it right.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: No doubt the hon. Gentleman, if he has the good fortune to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker—and I can congratulate him on being able to do so with considerable frequency—will be able to develop that line of argument. I am seeking to explain the provisions of the Bill. Any points which arise later will no doubt be replied to by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education, if she has the good fortune to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, at the conclusion of the debate.
The income limits are laid down on the principle which I indicated as being the principle behind the Bill—the relief of hardship. I am not concerned to argue that there may not be hardship in greater or lesser degree in respect of people with incomes far above £550 a year. I certainly would not argue any


such proposition. But when one is seeking to relieve hardship there is a case for concentrating the limited resources at one's disposal upon those whose incomes are least; that is to say, those who, in any stark computation of need, have the greatest need.
That principle, whether hon. Members agree with it wholly or partly, is the principle that was applied not only by the Coalition Government in 1944, but by the late Administration in 1947. They brought forward their proposals on the basis that they were designed to relieve hardship.

Mr. Anthony Marlowe: Whatever may be the merits of some form of means test in this matter, is it not the case that under previous legislation disability pensions are taken into account in assessing need. Does not my hon. Friend consider that a great injustice to ex-Service men is involved and that the matter ought to be considered?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The £52 disregard was originally linked with the question of disability pensions. In the first legislation I understand that it was originally provided that the disregard related only to Service disability pensions, but it was widened as it was thought at the time wrong to confine the disregard to that particular kind of income. On the broad merits of the question, I would only say that we are at the moment at the Second Reading stage of this Bill. No doubt my hon. and learned Friend will be able to deploy his argument if he also has the good fortune to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I am seeking to explain the provisions of the Bill.
I think that my hon. and learned Friend will find that there is a link between the £52 disregard and an original desire, very much akin to his, to exempt from these calculations all Service disability pensions. We have taken the view that the income limits prescribed in the 1947 Act are, in present circumstances, too low. The 1944 Act income limits were £300 for a married man or a man or woman with dependants, and £225 for a single person. They were raised in 1947 to £450 and £350 respectively.
This Bill proposes to raise them further to £550 and £425 respectively. It is the fact that increasing the income limits has

precisely the same effect as increasing the disregards. This is largely a matter of the way in which one approaches the problem. Therefore, our proposal can be looked at either from the point of view of raising the income limits or increasing the total disregard. The result from the point of view of the pensioner is precisely the same.
I do not seek to underrate the hardships which people on a higher level of gross income suffer. The case for imposing some income limit, or some limit on the disregard, rests upon the desirability of relieving those who are faced not so much with the problem of maintaining a reasonable standard of life, but with the problem of maintaining life at all—of concentrating it on the poorest section. That is the purpose for which this limitation is imposed.
The amount of the increase is set out in the Second Schedule. We are going a little bit further than my right hon. Friend forecast in that part of his Budget speech which I quoted earlier when he said that the measure of additional assistance should not exceed 5s. to 7s. 6d. a week, or up to a total of £20 a year. Actually, the increases we propose in respect of a married pensioner, or a pensioner with a dependant who retired before 1st April, 1948, is £26 a year, and the increase for a pensioner without a dependant is £20 a year.
During our discussions we came to the conclusion that the figure included in my right hon. Friend's Budget speech was perhaps a little on the low side. There is also the practical convenience, which mathematically minded Members will have ascertained already, that £26 a year cuts up very neatly into 10s. a week. There are, therefore, certain administrative advantages in a round and tidy figure of that character.
Also, though, for the reasons I gave earlier, comparisons in this matter are not very helpful, it is material to point out that the increase for the Service disability pensioner on the 100 per cent, rate is the same—10s. a week—and the increase for the old age pensioner under the National Insurance Scheme is 6s. 6d. for a single man and 12s. for a married man. The figures in this Bill, then, have a certain relativity to other changes outlined in my right hon. Friend's speech.
It will be seen from the table in the Second Schedule that the increases grow less as the date of retirement is after 1st April, 1948. The reason is that in general these pensions are based upon salaries ruling during the last few years of service. Public servants who retired after 1st April, 1948, have the advantage reflected in their pensions of the higher rates of salary ruling after that date.
What we have sought to do by the somewhat elaborate provisions contained in the Bill is to secure that the addition tapers off so as to secure that the actual amount of pension received by pensioners of the same rank or grade remains roughly the same regardless of their year of retirement. It has not been possible completely to even that out. There is a variation of a pound or two in respect of certain classes, but, so far as it is technically possible, we have tapered off the increase so as to secure that those who retired later than 1st April, 1948, shall receive substantially the same amount of pension—that is, the basic pension plus increases—as those who retired before, and I think that that approach will appeal to the House as being reasonable and fair in the circumstances.
Paragraph 2 of the Second Schedule also introduces a limitation to the effect that the increase shall not in any case exceed one-third of the annual rate of the basic pension. That is done simply to secure that there is not a disproportionate increase in the amount paid in respect of very small pensions. It is intended, if the House is good enough to approve this Bill, to bring its provisions into operation on 1st October, 1952. That is the earliest date by which the somewhat complicated arrangements by a whole variety of paying authorities can be completed.
Clauses 2, 3 and 4 are necessary to secure the carrying out of the general intentions which I have sought to outline in connection with a wide variety of special cases of pensioners whose pensions are paid under different enactments. If hon. Members will look at these Clauses, they will appreciate the appalling complexity of the task of actually putting into effect the intentions which I have already outlined. For example, in the case of widows and children of deceased firemen, their pensions and allowances are mostly

paid on flat rates, not related to the firemen's rate of pay, and have not been amended for some years. Consequently, the scheme of tapering off to which I have referred obviously is not applicable to that sort of pension.
We have sought, therefore, to get over the administrative difficulty and to give them the maximum increase permitted under this Bill by conferring powers upon my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary to make consequential arrangements by Statutory Instrument. These Instruments will be subject to the negative Resolution procedure, so that the House will be able to retain control over them. Similar provisions under subsections (3), (4) and (5) of Clause 2 apply to policemen.
A Bill of this sort is, of course, based on the best judgment which the Government can exercise between the various considerations involved. There is the question of the position of the local authorities, who are concerned in respect of the financial liability which falls upon them. There is the question of seeing that the Government behave as a good employer should, but, equally, the Government realise that the pensions which they pay to their former employees are raised by taxation from a very large number of people, many of them people of limited means. It is necessary, therefore, for the Government, at the same time, to be fair to ex-employees and to the taxpayer who foots the Bill.
The numbers involved are 250.000 already receiving pensions, who will receive increases, and 70,000 more, who will receive increases but did not receive them under the Act of 1947. Those figures are exclusive of the numbers concerned in the Armed Forces, because, as I have already indicated, this Bill does not deal directly with their cases.
The cost to the local authorities will be a little more than £2 million, and something in excess of £4 million to the national Exchequer. At the same time, it is a matter upon which opinions may well differ honestly and sincerely as to whether we have, in this matter, balanced properly the somewhat conflicting considerations which I indicated a moment ago. I can only say that, since my right hon. Friend's announcement, we have given very careful thought and study to


this problem, and we present these proposals to the House as a carefully-considered series of proposals which we believe strikes a reasonable balance between those conflicting considerations.
They will, undoubtedly, bring some very much needed relief to an admirable and hardly-tried section of the community; and the fact that, even at am time such as this, when we are beset with grave economic problems and faced by the imperious need for public economy, we have taken this step, should be a clear indication that the British Government has not forgotten, and does not intend to forget, those who have given them good service. It is in that spirit that I commend the Bill to the House.

5.6 p.m.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I should like to begin by congratulating the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on what I think will be agreed in every quarter of the House has been a very lucid and full description of what this Bill proposes to do.
As he indicated, it touches the lives of at least 320,000 people who are either already on pension or about to enter what, in the minds of some, is that very blessed state. Ex-civil servants, police, school teachers, firemen, officers of various grades in the local government service, and the Royal Irish Constabulary, some of whom I suppose are still left, all come within the four corners of this Measure.
In the intervention that I propose to make I should like the House to bear in mind that the object of the Bill is to increase certain pensions and the reason for this, which was clearly explained by the Financial Secretary, is to alleviate the hardship caused by the rise in the cost of living.
I was glad that the hon. Gentleman said that the Government have no apology to make for introducing a Measure of this kind. There are some, I know, and not necessarily altogether on that side of the House, who have thought that the introduction of a Measure of this kind a mistake. They argue that the cost of living affects all sections of the community, and that special legislation should not be introduced to help one section alone at the expense of the taxpayer. As the hon. Gentleman indicated.

there is a very good answer to criticism of this kind.
These people have been employed by the State, and the State should act as the best employer should. We have to remember, too, that the best employers outside even now assist those of their staff who have retired on pension by giving them supplementary allowances to meet the great rise which there has been in recent years in the cost of living.
There is another reason, which the Financial Secretary did not give, but which we should take into account when considering a matter of this kind. It is that the Government—any Government—can, more than many other agencies, affect for good or ill the cost-of-living index and the value at which the £stands at any given time.
A good example of this can, I think, be found between what happened in the First World War and what happened during the war that ended in 1945. During the First World War, the cost of living was allowed to soar and when the first Pensions (Increase) Bill was introduced in 1920 the cost-of-living index had reached the figure of 255. When the third Pensions (Increase) Bill was moved by the then Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer—if one might so describe him—in 1944, the cost-of-living index showed only a rise of 30 points.
The remarkable difference between those two figures was due to the fact that during the Second World War we had, as a people, learned a great deal about these matters, and had, by common consent on the part of all shades of opinion, both inside this House and outside, taken steps to keep down, as far as possible, the cost of living and to keep prices of commodities steady. In any case, the principle that the House should legislate and help State employees who have passed into retirement has undoubtedly now been accepted for several generations.
As I have already indicated, and as I think the Financial Secretary indicated, we had our first Act of this kind in 1920. We had another in 1924 and a third in 1944, and there was another, the last before the introduction of this Bill, in 1947. How should we judge this Bill? I listened to the Financial Secretary very carefully and he, apparently, could find


no fault in it. At the same time, I felt there was in most of what he said an attempt to forestall criticism which he no doubt realised would come from this side of the House.
When we on these benches looked at the Bill, we tried to judge it quite fairly by those tests which we felt should be applied to it. I think two tests can be applied. The first is: should we try to examine it through the eyes of a pensioner who retired, say, in 1938 and compare the purchasing power of the pension then paid to him, together, if one likes, with the increases since added to that pension by the Acts of 1944 and 1947, with its purchasing power today? I think that if we judge the proposals by this test the Bill must fail lamentably, because it does very little to close the very large gap which undoubtedly exists between the purchasing power of such a pension when first paid in 1938 and its purchasing power today.
The Financial Secretary may say that is not a fair test to apply and that the test which should be applied is the one which the then Sir John Anderson, now Lord Waverley, sought to apply and which the hon. Gentleman himself seeks to apply this afternoon, when introducing the Bill. In 1944, when the then Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced his Bill, he said that its aim was not to make additions to all pensions but to concentrate such assistance as could be given in helping cases of real and grave hardship.
Does this present Measure satisfy the test laid down by Lord Waverley in 1944? I think that the more we look at it and examine its provisions and the more we work out examples of just what it will mean to various classes of pensioners, the more we must agree, if we are fair to ourselves, that this Bill fails to meet the situation. This Bill aims to model itself very largely on the 1944 and 1947 Acts. But there are differences of a very substantial kind, and it is to those differences that I wish to draw the attention of the House.
Those two Acts upon which this Bill is based gave percentage increases on pensions up to a given income limit. As the hon. Gentleman has reminded us, in the 1944 Act the limit was £225 for those without dependants and £300 for those with dependants, and under the 1947 Act

£350 for those without and £450 for those with dependants. We quite realise that this Bill is an advance on these previous Measures and that we now have the income limits raised to £425 and £550 respectively. But I must point out that there is nothing in this Bill for those who elected to take advantage of Section 2 of the previous Acts under which the income limit went as high as £787 10s. There is a great difference between that figure and the £550 which is the highest income limit allowable, apart from the £52 disregard, under this Bill.
I want to ask the right hon. Lady who, I believe, is to reply to the debate, why, in this Bill, nothing has been done for those who previously elected to take their increase under Section 2 of the earlier Measures. Another question I wish to ask her—the hon. Gentleman did not really deal with this point—is why has the percentage basis been thrown overboard? Hitherto, in every Act of this kind increases have been made on a percentage basis, but in this Bill that has disappeared. The percentage basis was not something invented by a Labour Government which has to be avoided like the plague. It was invented by a Conservative Government at least 30 years ago, and it has stood the test of several Measures of this kind.
It seems to us, therefore, that there is no reason at all why it should have disappeared in this Bill. In its place we have the astonishing table which is to be found in the Second Schedule. It ranges from £26 or £20, according to whether the pensioner has any dependants or not, down to £6 and £4 in the case of those who retired on 31st March, 1952. It is an astonishing feature to find in a Bill of this kind. Not only does the table deal harshly with certain sections and types of pensioners, but it also departs from what one would think would be the right way of helping those who are suffering from hardship in this way.
If one analyses it, the proposals come to this: that the pensioner in the most favoured position, that is, the pensioner who overcomes all the limitations which are set forth—who drew his pension before 1st April, 1948; satisfies the means test laid down; has one or more dependants; has a pension not smaller than £78 a year, that is 30s. a week, or not greater than £550 a year—who, I say,


surmounts all these hurdles can receive, under this Bill, the magnificent sum of 1s. 5d. a day. But if he does not satisfy the conditions; if, for example, he went on pension this year, if he has no dependants and if he cannot satisfy the means test, he will get, as I work it out, something like 2d. a day added to his present pension.
In our view that is not good enough, particularly when it is realised what the cost of living is today, that there has been a serious time-lag over many years for many of these people, that the cost of living even now is rising and that we do not know how much higher it will go.

Mr. Spencer Summers: So that we may be quite clear, would the right hon. Gentleman say whether he is taking exception to the principle of tapering off to which my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary referred earlier?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I did not know that there is any tapering off here. One has or has not to comply with certain conditions.
As I understand, the reason why those who retired in 1951, for instance, will only have an increase of £6 or £4 to their pensions is due to the fact that their salary has probably gone up in the meantime and, therefore, a certain amount of that is taken into account when their original pension is computed. But tapering off, in the sense in which we understand it normally and in the sense in which it was used in the 1947 Act, is not to be found in this Bill.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: There may be some misunderstanding here. I used the expression "tapering off," as the right hon. Member will recall, in connection with the table which appears in the Second Schedule. I hoped that I had made myself clear. I certainly tried to make it clear, and if I did not do so it was my fault, that the effect of this would be to ensure, as far as possible, that the total pension—the basic pension plus the increase obtained by the pensioner—would be the same whether he retired in 1948, 1949, 1950, or so on. The intention was to level up, but the higher level of pension at later retirement would not require the same levelling up to reach the same level as the others.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I take that point very clearly. In that sense. I suppose there has been a tapering off. I was coming to that and I was going to make the point immediately. Perhaps I may now be permitted to do so.

Mr. Summers: I do not think that the right hon. Member has answered the point. Does he take exception to the scheme in the Second Schedule devised to ensure that a pensioner retiring, for instance, in 1948 shall, in fact, secure the same final figure as a pensioner retiring in 1951?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Certainly when the figures are as small as they are here and as derisory as they are in this table. It seems to me and to many of my hon. Friends that this table is an astonishing provision which means absolutely nothing when one examines it in detail. No one is going to tell me that a table which runs, as this one does, in a neat scale year by year in sums of £5 in the second column from £26 to £6, and in sums of £4 downwards from £20 to £4 in the third column, means anything at all to anyone who understands what has been happening during these last few years.
It is incredible to me that anybody could stand at that Despatch Box—if the Financial Secretary did so stand and argue, though I did not understand him so to do—and argue that from 1948 to 1952 the difference between those who retire in each of those separate years can be assessed at £5 each year. Changes in the cost of living have not worked out in that way. The cost of living during the last five or six years has certainly fluctuated, but it has not fluctuated as neatly as that.
I can only imagine that this table was elaborated without much regard to actuality. It looked neat to start at £26 and to taper off by sums of £5 down to £6. But I cannot imagine that when that table was elaborated anyone could think that we were doing justice year by year to people who retired in 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951 and 1952. I should like the right hon. Lady the Minister of Education, when she winds up the debate, to tell us how this table has been elaborated. Is it really, as the Financial Secretary said, that it has been done because it was essential to taper off the amounts which pensioners would receive so that


their pensions should approximate to actual fact according to the year in which they retired?
I ask the Financial Secretary whether, even now, it is not possible to revise the Money Resolution. As we read it, it is extremely tightly drawn. So far as my researches have gone, it is much more tightly drawn than any of its predecessors attached to similar Bills, certainly those introduced in 1944 and 1947.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: May I be allowed to clear up that point at once? So far as it has been practicable, this Money Resolution is based upon the 1947 model.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I cannot accept that. I have examined it. One of the things which appears in this Money Resolution and which was not contained in either of its predecessors, as far as my memory serves me, is that the date of the coming into operation of the Bill has actually been put into the Resolution. I appeal to the Financial Secretary to take out that provision so that when we come to the Committee stage we can consider whether something should not be done to make these increases, poor though they are, retrospective.
In 1944 the Bill was passed in May and the increases were dated back to 1st January of that year. I believe that we passed the 1947 Bill in either January or February and that the increases were dated back to 1st December. For the life of me I cannot see why this Bill should be dated as far ahead as it is. If the cost of living had not brought difficulties to these people for many, many months already, there might be something to be said for dating the Bill forward to 1st October.
But the argument that it is essential to give the Civil Service time to work out the amounts that will accrue cuts no ice at all. We could still pay the increases when the Civil Service was ready with the figures, and it is as easy to pay them in arrears as it is to start the thing off neatly, after getting the figures completed. There is really nothing whatever in that argument. If the hon. Gentleman can do very little else, I would ask him to keep an open mind on this question and, when we come to the Money Resolution, to delete that portion which refers to the date from which this increase

should operate, so that something can be done, even now, to ante-date it.
I should like to say something about the means test. I know that the hon. Gentleman will say that the means test appeared in the Act which the Labour Government passed and that it has appeared in all the Acts dealing with this matter up to now; but, as he probably knows, there is very strong resentment among pensioners over this particular provision. They do not like it, and we can all understand why.
Why cannot we agree to drop it? After all, there are many safeguards in the Bill. The amounts that are to be granted are very small indeed and it seems to us that it would not cost a great deal if, at last, we could get rid of this particular form of inquiry.
There is no means test when the pensions are granted. As the hon. Gentleman said, they are given on the basis of the salary received, the type of job which is done and the length of service given. When a pension is given to someone retiring we do not ask whether he is married, whether he has any money saved, whether he owns his house, or make any of the inquiries which now have to be made before a person can qualify for this increase. I think we should be acting in a dignified manner if we at last realised that all Governments in the past have been at fault in this matter, wiped the slate clean and abolished the means test altogether so far as these increases are concerned.
There has been a heavy fall in the value of money. I know that this Bill does not touch pensioners with, say, a pension of £800. To many people that may seem a large sum to draw by way of pension, but a pension of £800 in 1938 is only worth about £360 now, and I think we ought not to forget that when we are considering these matters.
I would remind the Financial Secretary that the House has recently been considering—and still has to consider on Third Reading—the Finance Bill. During the passage of that Bill through the House many millions of pounds were given away by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, much of it in response to pressure from his own back benches over the Excess Profits Levy. We are not asking here for millions of pounds from the Treasury. Far from it. We are only asking that justice


should be done, as the hon. Gentleman himself said, to a very deserving body of people, many of whom are living on extremely small pensions and who would value every concession that we can possibly make.
I would draw attention also to the inclusion of the one-third rule which is to be applied. It means that if a man has a pension of £51 he cannot possibly qualify for the £26 which is laid down in the table. He has to have a pension of at least £78 per year before he can qualify for the full amount. That is not helping the hardest hit. It means that those with higher pensions can qualify for the full amount whilst, because of this one-third rule, the man on a small pension is to get less than the maximum.
When the Chancellor introduced his Budget he announced a savage slash in the food subsidies, and went on to say that although this would mean a loss of £165 million to consumers—and add to the cost of living for all of us—we should not complain because we were most of us to get something back by way of Income Tax remissions.
Many thousands of these pensioners do not pay Income Tax, but they have had to suffer this slash in the food subsidies with the rest of us. Prices have already gone up, but the full effect of the changes made in the food subsidies has not yet been felt, and the astonishing thing is that we are discussing this Bill today when it is, quite frankly, already out of date. The cost of living has already overtaken the very niggardly and mean upward changes which are visualised in this Bill.
Although we do not intend to vote against the Second Reading of the Bill we shall have something to say when we reach the Committee stage. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to consider the criticism made during this debate, to see whether even now it is not possible to improve the Bill. I know that Members in all quarters of the House are anxious that we should do our best for these pensioners but, quite frankly, this Bill is not good enough. I hope, therefore, that we shall, not merely as parties but as a House, agree to improve this Bill so that it may cease to be what it quite definitely is now—a mean, poor, and niggardly Measure of which the Treasury should be ashamed.

5.38 p.m.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: No one who had only listened to the speech of the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) would have imagined that this was the first Measure of its kind since 1947. When they heard him say that this Measure failed lamentably they could not have guessed that since 1947, while the cost of living increased even more rapidly than between 1944 and 1947, year after year—nearly five years altogether—was let slip by the previous administration without any measure of relief being afforded at all. The right hon. Gentleman sat down with the words that this Measure was already out of date. If this Measure is already out of date how much more out of date was the 1947 Act long before the party opposite went out of power.
The right hon. Gentleman concentrated his criticism very largely upon the fact that the percentage basis—it was not a perfect percentage basis—embodied in the 1947 Act had been abandoned in this Bill and that a flat rate increase, subject to the Second Schedule—to which I shall come to presently—had been accorded. He failed to perceive that this flat rate increase means that there will be a larger percentage increase for the smaller pensions and that my hon. Friend is thereby literally carrying out his undertaking that the resources available would be concentrated upon giving the greatest help to those who suffered the greatest hardship.
The provisions of the Bill mean that there is the maximum percentage increase for the smallest pensions.

Mr. Douglas Houghton: The smallest pension is subject to another restriction—that is, the increase may not exceed one-third of the original basic pension.

Mr. Powell: Quite so. But in the 1947 Act the application of the percentage principle up to £100 had almost exactly the same effect.
The right hon. Gentleman appeared to have difficulty in apprehending the purpose of the scale in the Second Schedule. He failed to see that the increases in retiring salaries which have been taking place over the years since the war have automatically resulted in an increase in


retirement pensions; and when he criticised the tapering off in that Schedule, he should have recollected that the 1947 Act itself embodied precisely the same principle.
The gradual rise of leaving salaries was then foreseen, and it was provided by Section 3 that the increases under that Act should be reduced in proportion to the amount of qualifying service which was rendered after 1st April, 1946. Thus the right hon. Gentleman's own Act embodied exactly the same principle as is contained in the Second Schedule to this Bill.
The right hon. Gentleman criticised the means test, as he called it. But we have to face this question: are we to apply the resources which are available for this purpose where there is real hardship or are we to spread them more generally? Hon. Gentlemen opposite must come clean on this question; they must realise that when they are asking for the abolition of the means test they are asking that less should go to the pensioner who is in the most hardship.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Would the hon. Gentleman explain what he means by that—unless he means that there is only a certain amount which is divisible? We were not arguing that there was only a certain amount, and even the Money Resolution does not set forth the amount.

Mr. Powell: Of course, it is always the privilege of an Opposition to claim on any Measure that the resources which could be devoted to it are unlimited. But a Government, which has to apportion the national resources, has to lay down that sum xis the sum which can be devoted to a particular purpose. I am saying that for this purpose sum xis devoted most directly to the relief of real hardship by virtue of the provisions which are stigmatised as a means test.
One of the categories which will be affected by the Bill is that of retired teachers, and I want to draw my hon. Friend's attention to an existing provision of the Teachers (Superannuation) Acts which is causing hardship to retired teachers, who, in these days, are hard pressed. It will be within his knowledge that a great many of them obtain a very welcome supplement to their small superannuation by part-time work. That

work is usually part-time teaching; but it is nearly always part-time work either paid for by the State or supported by State grants.
Wherever that takes place, the effect upon their superannuation is governed by Section 6 (2) of the Teachers (Superannuation) Act, 1925. I will not trouble the House with the whole subsection, but the relevant words say that where in any quarter the salary and emoluments plus the quarterly rate of superannuation exceed the quarterly rate of salary at retirement, then the superannuation shall be reduced accordingly. I want to draw the attention of my hon. Friend to the great hardship, and I think injustice, which results from this provision.

Mr. Cove: I know something about that Act, but I do not see what the hon. Gentleman can do about it in this Bill.

Mr. Powell: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman does not wish to have this matter ventilated. I shall not detain the House long upon it.

Mr. Cove: It is quite all right. I do not object.

Mr. Powell: Most of the work which these superannuated persons obtain differs in amount quarter by quarter. The majority of teaching work is, of course, done in the last quarter of the year and the first two quarters of the following year. The result is that, however hard they work, very few of them can earn their full retiring salary, which was presumably the intention behind the 1925 Act.
I have an example before me which will perhaps make the point clear to the House. A constituent of mine, by part-time teaching work, earns, in the four quarters of the year, the following sums: £140, £104, £135 and £19—the last being in the summer quarter. The result is that, since his retiring salary was £150 a quarter and his superannuation is £38 a quarter, he loses part of his superannuation in two quarters of the year without any corresponding offset in the other two quarters, when he is below the maximum. Thus, instead of being able to earn up to his leaving salary of £600 a year, he is, in fact, unable to increase his income beyond about £540.
I cannot believe that this was the intention of Parliament in passing the 1925


Act, and I would point out to my hon. Friend that the disregards in this Bill are upon an annual basis. Indeed, the standard of living of pensioners of the kind with which we are dealing in the Bill is most reasonably expressed on an annual basis.
I suggest to my hon. Friend, therefore, that he would be meeting a real hardship and helping many of the classes of pensioners to whom this Bill is directed if, either in this Measure—and I cannot see the impossibility of embodying such an amendment in this Measure—or by other means, he substitutes for the quarterly basis of Section 6 (2) of the 1925 Act a different basis which will enable the presumed intention of Parliament to be achieved and a pensioner, by part-time work, to bring his total annual earnings up to the annual rate of his leaving salary. I hope that my hon. Friend will bring that point to the attention of those concerned.

Commander J. F. W. Maitland: Is my hon. Friend satisfied with that salary limitation?

Mr. Powell: That raises a larger question, and I am on the narrow issue that at present a superannuated teacher cannot bring his earnings up to the leaving salary by reason of the quarterly assessment which was written into the 1925 Act. I think this is an injustice and I hope that in some way it can be dealt with. Nevertheless, I do congratulate my hon. Friend and the Government on having belatedly, after five years, devoted attention in 1952 to the effect on this class of person of the rise in the cost of living since 1947.

5.49 p.m.

Mr. Ralph Morley: The point which the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) has made is one with which nearly all on these benches will have considerable sympathy, and particularly those who are ex-teachers. There is, however, nothing which can be done in this Bill to remedy that matter. With the utmost deference to you, Mr. Speaker, the hon. Member was out of order the whole time he was referring to this issue. It can be remedied only by an Amendment to the Teachers (Superannuation) Act. I hope that when an amending Bill is introduced in connection

with that Act, the observations which the hon. Member has made on this matter will be duly taken into account.
Many retired public service pensioners will welcome this Bill because, of course, it does add something, if not very much, to their retirement pensions, but I think that there are a large number of them who will think that the provisions of this Bill are very meagre indeed, and who will be disappointed that the Treasury has not been able to be more generous in this particular instance.
I suppose that one of the inducements to young men and women to enter the public service is the knowledge that at the end of their service they will be entitled to a certain pension. I think that there is, if not a contractual obligation, at least a moral obligation upon the Government to ensure that the value of their retirement pension shall be equal in purchasing power to the value which they assumed it would have, in accordance with the figures then in vogue, when they entered into the public service.
So far as the teaching profession is concerned, the teacher's pension is a contributory pension, and teachers generally are of opinion that they should receive in their pension £for £in value with that which they contributed, and if there is a very serious decline in the value of the £which was not foreseen and could not have been foreseen at the time when the pension scheme was first drawn up, then I think there is a moral obligation on the part of the Government, or of the local authority concerned, to increase the pension in order that the standard of life may be the same for the pensioner as he thought it would be when he first entered into the pensionable service.
The amount proposed in this Measure certainly does not make up in any way for the increase in the cost of living since 1938. I will take the most typical case among teachers—the case of the male teacher from a Class III area who retired in 1938. His pension then was £183 a year. Since that time he has received a 30 per cent. increase under the 1947 Act, which was the equivalent of £54, and which brought his pension up to £237 a year. He will receive, under the proposal in this Bill, an additional payment of £26, bringing his pension up to £80 more than it was in 1938.
That is to say that, while the pension in 1938 was £183, his pension now, under the terms of this Bill, will be £263; but since 1938 the cost of living has increased by 119 per cent. Therefore, the equivalent value today of the pension he received of £183 in 1938 is £400 a year, not £263 a year which he will receive when this Bill becomes law.
In fact, even with the additions made by this Bill to meet the increased cost of living of 119 per cent., he will have received an increase in his pension of something like only 45 per cent., and even with the increase in this Bill, undoubtedly, the pensioner's standard of living will be considerably lower than he anticipated that it would be when he retired in 1938.
Even if we suppose that the Act of 1947, which was introduced by my right hon. Friend, did what was necessary at that time and restored the position of the retired teacher, the retired teacher will now get under this Bill an increase of £26 a year. That, in fact, is less than the percentage increase in the cost of living upon the pension he was receiving after the increase had been made in 1947.
As between 1947 and 1952 when this Bill comes into operation he will have received an increase in his pension of just under 11 per cent., but the cost of living since 1947 has risen by 35 per cent., so that, even assuming the 1947 Act gave the retired pensioner his correct position—and I do not think it did give him his correct position: it was not generous enough in its provisions—then this Bill does not restore the position because it gives him an 11 per cent. increase of pension to meet a 35 per cent. increase in the cost of living.
I should like the right hon. Lady, when she replies to the debate, to tell us how this figure of £26 was fixed. It does not bear any relation to the increase in the cost of living. It does not bear any relation, so far as I can discover, to any ascertainable figure or collection of figures. What was the motive which induced the drafters of this Bill to fix this increase at £26 for married people and £20 for single people?
Why should there be—and I think this argument will appeal to the right hon. Lady—this difference between the

married pensioner and the single pensioner, the pensioner without dependants, so far as the teaching profession is concerned? Of course, the great majority of the retired teachers who are on pensions are women teachers, because women are in the majority in the teaching profession. It is not their fault that they are not married, because until recently a woman who became married had to give up her occupation as a teacher. I fail to see why she should be given less increase than the married person.
There is also the question of the widower whose wife has recently died and who will be classified as a single person and will get £20 instead of the £26; and yet, on account of the fact his wife has died and he has been deprived of her assistance, in order to obtain necessary assistance he may be put to considerable expense. I hope that at the Committee stage this anomaly of the differentiation between the married pensioner and the single pensioner may be eliminated.
It is true, of course, that the ceiling has been raised in this Bill. The ceiling has been raised by £100 for the married pensioner and £75 for the single pensioner, and that is a concession which will be welcomed, I have no doubt, by a good many pensioners, and will, as the Financial Secretary has just said, bring into the scope of the increase a good many people who were not brought into the scope of the increase granted in the 1947 Act.
But we still believe—a number of us—that the ceiling might have been pushed up a little higher—pushed up another £50, at least. If it had been pushed up by another £50 I think it would have brought in nearly all the retired teachers who are at present drawing pension, except, perhaps, just a few retired teachers who were headmasters or headmistresses of very large grammar schools.
Finally, while the increase has been made in the pension—it is true of only £20 or £26—and while the ceiling has been heightened, the figure of £52 of private income which is to be disregarded remains just the same as it was under the 1944 Act and the 1947 Act. The value of money has fallen considerably since 1944, and to some considerable extent again since 1947. Surely there is a very strong case for raising to £80 or £100 the £52 which is to be disregarded.


Very often people come to me and say that they are penalised because they have been thrifty, because they have saved a little money.
By saving a little money these people have been able to buy an annuity of £70 or £80 a year, at the age of 65, and now that there is the £52 figure £18 of that annuity is taken into account in fixing their "ceiling." This penalises thrift to a certain extent. If the amount was £52 in 1944 there is a very strong case for raising it now to somewhere in the neighbourhood of at least £100.
I must declare my interest in this matter, because should I be defeated at the next General Election, and be no longer a Member of Parliament, this Bill will give me another £20 a year on my teacher's pension. That is not a great deal but, as Yorkshiremen say, "it's summat."

Mr. Houghton: A Yorkshireman would say, "it's nowt."

Mr. Morley: I do not want to argue the difference between a Yorkshireman's "summat" and a Yorkshireman's "nowt". The £20 will buy me 2 ozs. of tobacco a week, and to that extent will be welcome.
In many respects this Bill is very disappointing. I think that the Government could have made the figures a bit higher than £26 and £20; they could have put in figures which have more relation to the increased cost of living since 1947; they could have pushed the "ceiling" a little higher, and I hope the right hon. Lady will explain why they could not do so. The £52 which is to be disregarded, which has remained the same since 1944, might, in all the circumstances, be raised to £80 or £100, and I hope that in Committee we may be able to move Amendments to those effects which will be favourably received by whoever is responsible for the Bill then on behalf of the Government.

6.3 p.m.

Mr. Raymond Gower: It appears that a considerable number of hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate and I shall not detain the House for any length of time. I should have thought, in the context of present conditions, and without seeking to make any party point, that hon. Members on both sides would have welcomed this Bill somewhat more warmly than they have. We have been told that it is niggardly

and totally inadequate; and numerous other expressions have been used. I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) made some quite pertinent remarks in reply to such suggestions.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) referred to the peculiar nature of the figures in the Second Schedule, but his remarks seemed to be not so much a criticism of those figures or of their relation to the cost of living as a criticism of the retirement pensions as they were, which the differentials in these figures seek to reconcile. I think that that is the reason why the figures are there in this form.

Mr. W. R. Williams: Would the hon. Gentleman explain further what is in his mind? It is not clear to us.

Mr. Gower: It appeared to me that the right hon. Gentleman's remarks were not so much a criticism of the cost of living as of the retirement pensions prevailing when these people first became entitled to their pensions. As the Financial Secretary told us, these figures reconcile those pensions to some degree. They not only increase them, but they seek to reconcile them.
Without in any way seeking to make a party point, I think that the cost of living is a real consideration, however it is occasioned. It does not matter much to any of us whether the rise in the cost of living is occasioned by adverse circumstances in world markets or by cuts in food subsidies. The fact remains that over a period of years there have been rises in the cost of living, and when we are judging the value of these increases, how the rises were occasioned is not important.
During the lifetime of the second of the two Administrations of the party opposite—that is, roughly between March, 1950, and October, 1951—whether or not we attach great importance to such figures, the official index is stated to have risen by about 18 points. I do not say the official index is a perfect guide. I think it is a very imperfect guide. But the fact remains that the official index was then drawn up on roughly the same basis as it is now. I am advised that during the lifetime of the present Government the cost of living, based on a similar index,


has risen only about four points. We are told that even when the reductions in food subsidies take effect the total effect of the official index will be in the neighbourhood of 8| points.
If these increases are inadequate—and it might well be pleaded that they are—to cover a rise of 8½points in the cost of living, or even if they are inadequate to cover a slightly larger amount, an increase was certainly long overdue to cover the greater rise of 18 points during the 18 months of the previous Government. I think that a great deal of time can be wasted in arguing whether one Government or another is more responsible for an increased cost of living, in whatever way it has been caused.

Mr. Harry Wallace: I appreciate the point the hon. Gentleman makes about the rise in the cost of living and not wanting to waste time by comparing one Government with another, but does he not appreciate that we are now trying to do justice to people who were pensioned as long ago as 1938, who have been left now in a very bad condition. What is the hon. Gentleman's conclusion?

Mr. Gower: I will come to that in a moment.
The hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Morley) advanced the somewhat idealistic suggestion that a pension should represent to the pensioner its actual purchasing value—he will correct me if I am wrong—as he conceived it would be at the time he began to contribute for it. That is something for which we could all wish, but to be fair, that kind of argument takes us very far indeed. It might similarly be argued that someone who is not entitled to a pension at all who has saved £200, should now be entitled to go to the bank and say, "This money is reduced in value and I should have a larger sum in return for it."

Mr. Morley: In the case of public servants, the Government of the day have a contractual and moral obligation. In the case of the man the hon. Gentleman has just quoted the Government have no such contractual and moral obligation. The Government have, of course, an obligation to keep down the cost of living as much as possible and to keep the value

of money stable, but that is not the same obligation as they have to the public servant and his pension.

Mr. Gower: The Government of the day issued him with certain legal tender which he rightly conceived to be of a certain value, and he might say that some years later he should be entitled to go to the Government and say, "These notes have depreciated in value, and just as a pensioner is entitled to an increased sum to compensate him, so I, being a person not having a pension, should be allowed to exchange these notes for a larger sum of money."
We could pursue that argument further. A poor person who has been thrifty and invested his savings in a small house for which he receives a rental would be just as much entitled to come along and say, "This rental has depreciated in value; I should be entitled to have a larger rent." That kind of argument can lead to involved and, possibly, dangerous fields of controversy.
I respectfully submit that in the context of our national situation, as we see it at present, this Bill is one which the House should welcome. I believe that hon. Members opposite will not divide against it. I cannot see how they can. After all, in this country—and this is a great defect in political life as I see it today—the average person is completely ignorant of the very delicate position in which we stand.
Some of us who know the position of our economy, and who have heard tell of the difficulties now of obtaining cargoes for shipping and the greater resistance to our exports abroad, must realise that all these things and social services and pensions—all very desirable—are making us, with our vast population, hostages to fortune, and, therefore, I submit that this House should not only say that this Bill must have a Second Reading but it should welcome it.
Finally, I am glad to say that I have been told to welcome the Bill by my own constituency branch of the National Union of Teachers. They instruct me in a letter to attend here today and support the Second Reading of this Measure. In justice to them they also state that they consider that these increases are not entirely adequate, that the Bill does not remove the means test—a matter which has already been referred to—that, in


their view, the income limitations for the granting of increases are not sufficiently high and that the amount of income—and I do not think that this has been stressed—to be disregarded has not been increased.

Mr. George Thomas: Do I understand that apart from all these arguments, they support the Bill?

Mr. Gower: Yes, not only do they instruct me in the opening paragraph of their letter but, after telling me all these things, they say, in their closing paragraph:
While pointing out the deficiencies indicated above, we shall, nevertheless, be glad to be assured that you will attend and support this Bill on Second Reading, whether in its present form and/or improved.

6.14 p.m.

Mr. W. G. Cove: I do not intend to delay the House for long, but, quite frankly, I have given some amount of thought and study to these proposals and I can find neither rhyme nor reason in them. The proposals are irrational, and, so far as they attempt to be rational, they are derisory. There is no doubt about that. I take rooted objection to the approach to this problem which was adumbrated by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury this afternoon.
The hon. Gentleman approached the problem of the pensioner from the point of view of hardship. He gave me the impression that this Bill has really no relation at all to what is generally called contractual pensions, that is, the pensions of teachers and civil servants, which are related to their occupation. Their occupational pensions are vitally different from what I would conveniently call charity pensions—pensions which are given either in major content or partially to meet cases of poverty and hardship. We know the defence of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) because we have read the book which he wrote in conjunction with the Minister of Health.
What are the pensions—I will mention only two—received by teachers and civil servants? They are deferred pay. I remember that when the 1925 Act for teachers was going through the Committee stage, the then President of the Board of Education, Sir Eustace Percy, argued that teachers' pensions were deferred pay. If these pensions are

deferred pay, ought they not, therefore, to be protected from the tremendous devaluation owing to the rise in the cost of living? I know that in the case of civil servants they do not pay a contribution, but I believe that they still argue—and I have seen their arguments—that they pay a contribution by indirect means, and that it is taken into account that they get free pensions in the assessment of their salaries. In the case of teachers, they pay a direct contribution. I say that the State has no right to deduct from the present salaries in order that it may be deferred pay and then give back, in debased coinage, what has been taken from teachers years ago.
Here is another point. In the case of public servants such as teachers—and I think I am correct in saying that this also applies in the case of civil servants—what does the State say? It says, "You must retire at a certain age. You must go; you are no longer fit, owing to your age, to carry out the duties which you are supposed to carry out." In the case of the teacher who retires optionally at 60 and compulsorily at 65, the State says, "You must go." Yet the State has taken from them pension contributions for many a year, and it then says, "You must go and have this deferred pay in deflated value."
I say that that is entirely wrong. I will not go into the details. We will discuss them in Committee, but I should like to know from the Front Bench opposite what relationship there is between £26 a year and £20 a year to the increased cost of living. It is, I think, because, as the Minister himself said, 10s. a week is a convenient sum for the pensioners to get. There is no rhyme or reason in it otherwise.
What protection from hardship is there for the lower paid pensioner? It is a negation of the principle relating to hardship, because, if it is a case of hardship, the hardship lies with the lower paid pensioner yet this one-third provision will penalise the lower paid pensioner more than the better paid pensioner. That seems to be a complete muddle.
We resent very much the introduction of the means test in this matter. [HON. MEMBERS: "The Labour Government introduced it."] I like the way the Tory Party hides behind the omissions and commissions of the Labour Government.


It is wonderful what excuses they can find. I should like them to stand on their own feet and be virtuous in their own right and not hide behind what the Labour Government did in 1947 If it is wrong, then it is wrong.

Mr. Marlowe: The hon. Gentleman misunderstands the point. He used the word "introduction," endeavouring to imply that this is being done for the first time. He knows that that is inaccurate.

Mr. Cove: That is exactly what I was saying. It is no good hon. Members excusing themselves for what they are now doing by saying that it was done by the Labour Government. Even if the Labour Government did it, that does not necessarily make it right. Now is the day of salvation for the Tory Party in relation to this. The proposal is irrational, there is no rhyme or reason in it and the amounts are inadequate.

Mr. Gower: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us what amounts he would consider adequate?

Mr. Cove: Financial Resolutions are very tricky things, but if I had a chance I would put down an Amendment to raise the amount. I cannot guarantee that because it depends on whether or not it would be in order. If I had my own way I would reject the Bill. I fundamentally disagree that the problem should be approached from the point of view of hardship. I profoundly disagree that the Bill should tinker with poverty; it does not remove poverty and there will be poverty galore when it is in operation.
I hope that during the Committee stage we shall be able to exert enough pressure to raise the amounts, to abolish the objectionable terms embodied in the Bill and to get the State to do the proper thing by its servants and make the Bill reasonable and worth while.

6.24 p.m.

Miss Irene Ward: Like most hon. Members, I welcome the Bill. There is no doubt that six years of Socialist Government have very much exaggerated the difficulties of the people covered by the Bill. We have heard a great deal about regulations and statistics, but there is a special point which I should like the Financial Secretary to

bear in mind. The rise in the cost of living in relation to essentials creates great difficulties for people with low incomes, and, although there are signs of a fall in the cost of living in certain directions, unfortunately the cost of essentials such as food, heating and rates remains high and is increasing. It is essential to bear that aspect of the situation in mind when we look at the problems of these people.
My hon. Friend drew attention to the fact that in the Bill the Government were accepting responsibility for hospital servants who were not servants of the Government before the passing of the National Health Service Act. I realise from his remarks that he is sympathetic towards covering the pensions problems of those people. I have been asked to draw his attention, on behalf of the Royal College of Nursing, to an omission. As a result of his sympathetic reference to this section of the community and his admission that it is the duty of the Government to protect these people, I hope he will be able during the Committee stage to include the section to which I shall refer.
I understand that the Bill covers nurses on pension who were in the service both of the local authorities and the voluntary hospitals when the Act was passed—nurses who were then working and have since retired—and also nurses whose pensions were supplemented by the voluntary hospitals. Owing to the increase in the cost of living between 1945 and 1948, some voluntary hospitals supplemented the pensions of their nurses who had retired from their own funds. I have no doubt that this problem may equally apply to other hospital officers, though their specific case has not been put to me. However, I should like my hon. Friend to understand that I am speaking for the whole range of people who were in the service of the voluntary hospitals.
There is no provision under the Bill, if I am correctly informed, for applying the pensions increase to nurses who were employed by voluntary hospitals unless they were drawing the supplementation. The opinion expressed by the Royal College of Nursing is that if the Government feel under a moral obligation—as they do—to give pensions increases to nurses who were covered in the way I


have indicated, there is also a strong moral obligation to cover by pensions increases under the terms of this Bill other nurses who were in retirement and were already in receipt of pensions from the voluntary hospitals. I hope the Financial Secretary will turn his mind to this problem, because I am certain he would not wish an injustice to be done to a very deserving section of the community
I want to raise another point. My hon. Friend pointed out that the Service pension increases would be covered by Royal Warrant. I notice that there is a special provision in the Bill for dealing with widows' pensions under the Fire Brigade Pensions Act, 1925, and the Police Pensions Act, 1921. My hon. Friend explained that, owing to the administration of these Services, there had to be a special provision in this Bill to cover these particular cases, but he did not say about the Service pensions whether, in fact, the widows of Service men were equally covered, nor did he say whether there was to be any increase in pensions under a Statutory Instrument for the widows of Service men who had lost their husbands in peace-time and not through the exigencies of war. I hope that I shall be able to receive some assurance from my right hon. Friend when she winds up the debate that this very deserving section of the community will also be covered.
I want to add one other reference to the points that have been made about the application of the means test. I have received from a very reliable source one or two points which support the very reasonable request that my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary should look again at this question of the application of the means test.
What worries me is that, though I know that in the Budget the Chancellor did his best to cover certain sections of the community on low income level who have to cope with the withdrawal of the food subsidies, I am not entirely satisfied that the Treasury have sufficient knowledge of the human problems which sometimes are examined with greater sympathy and support in other Government Departments. I think that the Ministry of National Insurance, the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Health have a greater contact with the

ordinary lives of the people, and I am not entirely satisfied that there has been sufficient investigation into the problems of the people whom we are trying to protect in this particular Bill.
I want to read two or three points that are made by a reliable correspondent about the application of the means test to teachers. One of the objections to the proposed scheme is that it does not differentiate between the pensioner who retired on his or her maximum pension and the pensioner who had to retire prematurely owing to ill health and on a smaller pension. It sets up two different scales of pension for the same scale of compulsory superannuation contribution. It takes no account of the pensioners' estate other than that part which is liable for Income Tax purposes. In other words, there seem to be a great number of anomalies which might well, in the interests of those concerned, be examined, if not by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, then by other Government Departments which are more closely in touch with the lives of the people.
The increase in pensions which is denied to the thrifty pensioner would be taxed as earned income, whereas the income from his or her thrift which prevents him or her from getting the increase is taxed as unearned income. That is a very important point indeed, because it imposes a hardship on the thrifty as against those who, perhaps through no fault of their own, have not been in a position to save. The statutory contributory pensions are not subject to a similar test, and there is no question of a means test when increases of wages or salaries are given to active workers to meet the increased cost of living. This is a very important point and deserves very close examination.
Though I think this Bill will be extremely beneficial to a very deserving section of the community, I still think that it has been based too much on the Bill which was introduced by the Socialist Government. In my opinion, it was not a very satisfactory Bill from the point of view of these particular people whose cases I have endeavoured to present to the House this afternoon.
I want to make one other point. Many hon. Members have raised the question of the one-third limit. Certainly I have


no knowledge, and I have never heard any real discussion, on the subject as to how many pensioners there are who are on very low pensions.

Mr. W. R. Williams: Would the hon. Lady accept the assurance from me that there are thousands of them, and that most of them are in that category?

Miss Ward: I readily accept the hon. Gentleman's statement, but I have not heard discussed the problem of this kind of pensioner, from the point of view either of the human or the financial aspect, and I should be much happier if I had this particular picture presented in such a way as would convey to me and to the House the extent of the problem.
If I may, I will return for a moment to the nursing profession. I rather emphasise that profession, because we have heard a great deal said this afternoon about teachers and civil servants. Therefore, I am spending a little more time discussing the problems of the nurses. I know there are a large number of nurses who have very small pensions indeed. There is substance in the allegation that the people on low pensions are not getting sufficient increase to enable them to meet the very difficult problems of living which they have to face today.
There is another point. If that one-third limit is imposed on a very low pension, it means that the single person may have an advantage over a pensioner with dependants. If an additional amount is allowed for a dependant and it is divided with the statutory limit imposed, we may get above the limit more easily than in the case of the pension of a single individual. That particular aspect of the situation wants further consideration by my hon. Friend.
I conclude by saying that I very warmly welcome this Bill. I am very glad that my hon. Friend introduced it today, and I am glad that its terms are better than the original ones mentioned before, but I want to impress with all the power that I can command that it is this section of the community which is most up against the problem of living today. The problems of these people require the greatest and the most careful examination. I hope that my right hon. Friend can assure me when she replies that, even though no positive action can be taken in the Bill—we do not want to delay its

passage to the Statute Book—she will see that it is conveyed to other Departments that it is necessary to look at the problems of these people, who have had the worst deal of all out of the period of Socialist government.

6.41 p.m.

Mr. Harry Wallace: I hope that the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Miss Ward) will forgive me if I do not follow her and attempt to deal with all the points she has raised. I want to confine myself to the essential points of the Bill. I will, however, ask her to consider her appeal against some sort of general picture of the Civil Service. I would ask her to think of 250,000 people with an annual rate of retirement of between 10 per cent. and 5 per cent., and she will realise that thousands of people are leaving the Service every year, mostly people of older age. If she multiplies that number by five, 10, 15 or 20, she will get some idea of the number of people who are now trying to exist on very low pensions.
I would ask the House not to forget the point which is made in the Financial Memorandum to the Bill, that there was an Act in 1920, another in 1924, another in 1940, another in 1947, and there is now another in 1952. The pensioner is always left well behind in the adjustment of income to cost of living. I am not criticising the present Government any more than I criticised the previous Government when I say that it is time something was done to see to it that the pensioner has not to wait for three, four or five years before he gets this adjustment. It is an obligation on the House of Commons to move quickly to help these people
Let me give the House an idea by taking as an illustration the case of an old colleague of mine. His pension in 1939 was 25s. a week. That is pretty much the pension which most of the people in the Post Office get. The maximum pension is half a man's wage, but he is a lucky man who leaves with 40 years' service and gets the maximum pension. We must visualise men and women with between 20 years' and 30 years' service, allowing for late recruitment, late entry into the Service or medical disqualification.
Take this case, in which the pension was 25s. in 1939. In 1944 it was adjusted


to 32s. 6d. That was not under a Socialist Government. In 1947 it was raised to 35s., an increase of half-a-crown. That was under a Socialist Government and was related to the cost of living. When the increase comes along under the present Bill it will be just over 8s., and the total which the pensioner will get will be 43s. 4d. That increase from 25s. to 43s. 4d. represents an increase in the cost of living of 120 per cent., according to which that man ought to be receiving about 52s. 6d.
That is the picture. I am not criticising. I recognise that what is now proposed is acceptable, but it is not enough. I hope that when the Bill goes to Committee it can be improved. If the right hon. Lady can give some indication that that is to happen I shall be very pleased. The limit of one-third of the basic pension is unreasonable. I have just given an example, in which it seems unreasonable to apply the restriction of one-third to the pension of 25s. The matter should be looked at again.
I would emphasise another point which has been made by some of my hon. Friends, because I think it is important, about what we call the "disregard income" of £52. It is unfair to keep that figure, and the Government should alter it to £104. I ask the Government to give consideration to that point. Hon. Gentlemen who support the Government will probably endorse my point of view of this matter. In the same way I appeal that the income limit which is now taken into account ought to be disregarded. I do not see why income from other sources should be brought into the picture at all when we are trying to restore partially the purchasing power of these people.
Those are the points which might very well be looked at and improved in Committee. I know there is the question about the terms of the Money Resolution but, having heard the Financial Secretary's reply to an hon. Gentleman on this question, I am hopeful that there will be scope for improvements. I would remind the House that the increase in the cost of living since 1947 has been 35 per cent., and that the present proposal does not meet that increase, even when we take the most favourable figure, £26. We scale downwards and not upwards, so that many people will not get anything like

adequate recognition of the rise in the cost of living.
I hope that when the Bill goes to Committee a real attempt will be made to make adjustments and to improve the Measure as much as possible. I hope that £26, which is now the maximum figure, may be improved to £52, or anyhow that an increase on the £26 will be made.

6.49 p.m.

Commander J. W. Maitland: This is the fourth time that the House has considered a Measure to increase pensions. The Bill and the method of making the increase are a monument to the fact that contributory pensions were not designed to work in a world of continuing inflation. I do not think however that, basically, this is the right way to do it. For one reason, a Bill like this gives the illusion, or the impression, that things are a little bit better for the pensioner. What it does not do is to attack the out-of-date machinery of the Acts which grant the pension. They are the ones which want reconsidering. The anomalies about which we are talking today are their fault.
It is an important matter to discuss the pensions of the teaching profession in this House, for it is the only occasion when we can make any financial difference to the teachers. Their salaries are behind the iron curtain of the Burnham Committee, which is something we cannot touch. Let us be honest about that. Therefore, when we are considering pension increases, it is relevant to consider the whole purpose of a pension.
The purpose is to provide something on which a man or a woman can live when they retire. It is also, or should be, an inducement to enter a specific profession. The security which it offers is a very proper inducement which a Government or an authority can offer to people to come into their service. Owing to the way in which the cost of living—or, as I prefer to call it, inflation—has increased in this country, that inducement no longer exists. Yet we take no action, as I think we should, to try to increase that inducement.
For example, my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) referred to something which has


always worried me. It is that a pensioned teacher cannot earn more than a certain amount of money which makes up his or her income to the salary which he or she was drawing when they left the service. Whatever Government is in power, I maintain that this is an entirely wrong principle. Heaven knows we are short of teachers. The entire education system is in a very serious position because of the shortage of women teachers, and we may have to alter our whole outlook and methods of approach because of it. Pensioners ought to be able to earn as much as they can without having their pension altered in any way.
That is a principle which I believe is absolutely right. I ask the right hon. Lady to separate the pensions of teachers from the other matters contained in this Bill, and to see if she cannot produce a consolidating Measure which will overcome all these anomalies. I know the difficulties, because I know that she has a considerable debt to the Treasury round her neck in regard to these pensions. It may not be good politics to try to destroy these anomalies in this way, but I am absolutely certain it would be good government to do so, and I ask her to take courage and reconsider these matters by giving thought to the method I have suggested.

6.54 p.m.

Mr. W. R. Williams: In view of the time, I shall have to curtail a number of things I wanted to say about this Bill. First I want to refer to a meeting I had in Liverpool a few weeks ago, when I met between 300 and 400 pensioners from the Post Office. It was quite clear to me, having spent the best part of 20 years with them, that a large number of those people were suffering seriously from the deflated value of their pensions. I was sorry to see one or two looking rather more shabby than of old, and I felt certain that they had found it difficult to make ends meet with their pensions, specially those who had gone on pension between 1935 and 1940.
The hon. Lady the Member for Tyne-mouth (Miss Ward) doubted whether there would be many people in the service who would come within the ambit of this one-third. I want to explain briefly how that can be.

Miss Ward: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for interrupting, I did not say I doubted the position. What I said was that I did not know how many there would be, and that is a different thing.

Mr. Williams: I do not know what the distinction is, so I will leave that to the hon. Lady. I think the House will recollect exactly what she said. The reason why I wanted to give her the assurance which I sought to give was that a large number of people, particularly in the Post Office, do not enter the service until they have reached an advance age because they are ex-Service people. Therefore, even if they serve until they are 60, or in some cases 65, they will not have a full pension. Thousands have gone from the Post Office after 10 or 15 years' service. It does not leave much to the imagination of the right hon. Lady to think what their pensions would be when calculated in eightieths of the wages.
I do not want to make any party matter out of what I am about to say. Too many of us are in glass houses to be able to throw many stones from either side of the House. I am satisfied that the pensioners from the Civil Service and the other authorities have a good deal to complain about to both major parties in regard to the time-lag in meeting the changes that have taken place in the value of money and of pensions. In 1920 there was a lag of five years. In 1944 we had a lag of four years. Now we have a lag of five years from 1947.

Mr. J. K. Vaughan-Morgan: But this Government has acted with considerable more alacrity than its predecessors.

Mr. Williams: I said I was not trying to make any party point, but we were not in Government in the early inter-war years. For the benefit of the hon. Member I will repeat what I was saying. Whichever party has been in government, the delay in trying to meet the position has been absolutely unreasonable and illogical. Every year that the position is ignored is a serious matter for a person whose expectation of life of necessity becomes a limited one.
Now I want to make a point in regard to the amount. For the life of me I cannot see why it has been decided on £26 per annum. Unfortunately I had to attend another meeting and did not hear the opening statement of the Financial


Secretary, so I do not know whether any reference was made to the reasons for this. As far as I can see, the amount is not related to anything specific. It cannot be related to the cost of living, because that has gone up 35 per cent. since 1947. It cannot be related to the general increase of wages outside, for that increase has been at least 28 per cent.
It cannot be related either to the National Insurance retirement pension or to National Assistance. It cannot be related to any of those things, because there is no comparison between the figures. For instance, under the National Assistance scales husband and wife have received an increase of 47½ per cent. since 1948, and a person living alone with house commitments and so on has received 46 per cent. Married couples living on the National Insurance retirement pension have had since 5th July, 1948, an increase of 30 per cent. and single persons have had an increase of 25 per cent.
So far as I can see, a large number of people who come within the ambit of this Bill will not get much more than between 11 or 12 per cent. and 18 per cent. which, in effect is only practically half what they ought to be receiving if they are to be given reasonable compensation for the increased cost of living.
I find that in the case of civil servants the average pension is about £169. If the pension was on the basis of the National Assistance Board they would be getting an increase of £81 5s. If it was on the basis of National Insurance it would be £51. If it was strictly in accordance with the cost of living it would be £39, but what they are actually going to get is £26. I suggest that it is well worth considering how we are going to relieve hardship on the basis of these figures, because the basis of the amendment of these successive Acts has been to try to remove hardship which has accrued to pensioners because of the changing cost of living in this country.
The majority of the civil servants were not eligible to come under the old National Insurance scheme and were not entitled to old age pensions in their own right as contributory pensioners. The bulk of them, on very low pensions, as many of my hon. Friends have sought to prove, are not in a position to live without

recourse to National Assistance. I think that is wrong.
I do not want to make any distinction between civil servants and other members of the community, but I should like to repeat what has been said before: there was a contract between civil servants and the Treasury. In fact, in most arbitration proceedings with which I have been associated, it was generally accepted that for sick benefit and pension superannuation rights about 12½per cent. was regarded as an equivalent. Therefore, for all these years these people have been making an equivalent contribution of 12½per cent. and when it comes to the question of enjoying their pensions they are obviously not getting the value of the contributions which they have indirectly made to the fund.
I want to refer to this question of the time lag. I do not want to try and devise ways and means. The right hon. Lady will know as well as I do that it would be rather difficult for anybody, without giving very full consideration to the matter, to determine how frequently there should be reviews, but I certainly think that these old people are entitled to more frequent reviews than at five or four yearly intervals. If some machinery can be devised whereby the increased cost of living can be more closely equated and related to current events, that will be much appreciated by the pensioners.
I should like to refer to the matter of retrospection. I really cannot see why the Government cannot back-date this Measure. I cannot see any reason why it should be 1st October, 1952, having waited since 1947. I am not blaming anybody; from the point of view of the pensioner it does not matter if it is a Socialist Government or a Conservative Government that does this. What I am saying is that, having kept these people waiting for five years, through whatever cause, it is unreasonable to ask them to wait until 1st October, 1952, for this increase of £26 per annum at the maximum. I should like the right hon. Lady to consider that and to bear in mind that there are already precedents. The precedent was already established in the case of the 1944 and 1947 Acts in which there was some measure of retrospection.
If the right hon. Lady and the Treasury cannot go back to 1st January of this year, which I regard as a reasonable date, why not 1st April? Why not make some


approach to this question in order to meet the cost of living which has been rising since 1947 and which, according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is bound to rise between now and 1953?
From my experience of being in the Civil Service for the best part of 30 years and being connected with it for the best part of 40 years, I despair of ever getting the Government to be regarded as the best employers or even amongst the best employers. It is not unreasonable, however, to ask them to be of the number of good employers. Good employers have been treating their pensioners better than the Government have been treating theirs. Let us leave out the party issue; all I ask is that we should try and make amends and increase the amount. Even if we only increased it to £39, that would make a big difference to those people who have very small pensions. I ask that this Measure should be retrospective to 1st April of this year, and that some effort should be made in the future to try and prevent this lag which is imposing so much hardship on so many of these people.
As to the question of the means test, if we introduce into a means test the assessment of a house occupied by a man who has been trying for a lifetime to save enough to buy it, then in my opinion we are mean in the extreme. We ought seriously to consider this figure of £50 and see whether we cannot at least double it and bring it into line with what the Government have done in other directions. I hope that these points will be considered by the Treasury, and that on the Committee stage we shall be encouraged to put down a few Amendments calculated to improve the condition of these people.

7.8 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Marlowe: The hon. Member for Droylsden (Mr. W. R. Williams) said that he found it difficult to follow the basis upon which the new rates were to be paid, and he added that he also wanted to avoid any question of party politics. To some extent I agree with hon. Members opposite who think that the increases are insufficient, but I do not think the hon. Gentleman can keep the question of party politics entirely out of our discussion.
I do not myself wish to introduce party politics at this stage, but there is no doubt

that the principle upon which the Government have had to act is the amount of money which they have available to spend on this project. The amount of money which they have to spend is obviously largely conditioned by the state into which the country has been brought over the last four or five years. Equally the cost of living cannot be entirely separated from that factor, and that also must be, in the opinion of many, a question which is closely connected with party politics.
However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that these increases do not go far enough. It is said that some 320,000 people are affected by this Measure. In spite of all the changes made by the Representation of the People Act, 1949, which limited my constituency to some 70,000 people, my correspondence is driving me to the conclusion that the whole of the 320,000 people affected by this Measure live in my division. I am bound to bring to the notice of the Government that there is among many, and particularly among retired civil servants, a large degree of dissatisfaction at the rates which are proposed in this Bill.
I want to deal with the principle which should affect the rate at which a pension should be paid. I think that the recipient of a pension has something in the nature of a contract with the payer that when he leaves his employment he will be able to enjoy a certain standard of living and have a reasonable prospect of a pension providing for that standard of living in the days of his retirement. It is abundantly clear that nowadays these rates do not allow that principle to be carried into effect.
An enormous number of people are finding that the money is, in effect, nearly halved. In many cases, particularly of those who retired before the war, and whose pensions have been increased under the 1944 Act and the 1947 Act and will be increased under this Measure, pensioners are finding that the purchasing power of their pensions, even after the increases are taken into account, are virtually halved. A person who may qualify for £500 finds that the actual relative value of his pension is about £250, and all he is getting by way of addition is a meagre increase of £26. So, while his pension is halved, his increase is about 5 per cent.
I regard that as unsatisfactory, and I hope that the Government will think again about the amount which should be devoted to this purpose. The Government have agreed to considerable expenditure in other directions, and I find it difficult to find a more worthy project on which they could spend their money than that of providing money for the retired people for whom they are responsible.
I should have preferred to see another £4 million—which is the cost to the Exchequer under this Bill—taken from the £40 million to be provided for the medical service and allotted to this scheme. That would have enabled the Government to double the amount they could give these pensioners. Perhaps I should not go further than that, because those of my constituents who are not pensioners are doctors. I feel that it would not have been difficult for the Government to have found another £4 million to double the amount they are making available under this Measure.
One aspect to which I wish to refer, and on which I interrupted the Financial Secretary, is the question of taking into account disability pensions when applying the needs test. I regard it as most unfair that ex-Service men in receipt of disability pensions should have the amount deducted before the amount of their entitlement is taken into account. It really means that disability pensions are being taken from them because the disability pension is taken into account when assessing needs, so that the man who has a disability pension is brought on to exactly the same level as the man without a disability pension.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury also said that he hoped the Government would show an example of being good employers. I am bound to say that I do not think that in this particular Measure they do so. My hon. Friend knows the figures supplied to the Treasury of the pension measures which have been taken by the banks, for instance, which show that they have dealt with this problem in a far more generous way than have the Government. They have not, for instance, put on a £500 limit. They have kept pace with the problems from year to year and given bonuses and increases related to increases in the cost of living. In that way they have shown themselves to be good employers and

have set a standard from which the Government are falling in the Bill now under consideration.
The real trouble is that we are dealing with the problem only at stages of four or five years, as we have been doing over the last decade or more. The difficulty is that we allow the gap to get too wide to be able to bridge it economically. I think this problem should be dealt with in an entirely different way. The time has passed for using old legislation and trying to amend it. This Measure is merely an amendment of the 1944 Act and the 1947 Act, and I suppose that in due course another amending Measure will have to be introduced.
It is an unsatisfactory procedure to deal with the problem by amendment at three or four-yearly periods. The time has come to recast the whole of this system and try to introduce a comprehensive Measure which will give pensioners an amount relative both to their original entitlement and to the present cost of living. An entirely new calculation is required and the whole method needs to be recast.
I realise the difficulty with which the Government are faced today and that, much as they would like to, it is not easy for them to vote vast sums of the taxpayers' money to provide increased pensions. In the end it has all to come from the taxpayers' pockets, and questions have to be nicely balancd as to how much the working taxpayer is prepared to vote from his income to provide for his fellows who have ceased to work.
I reiterate my view that this Bill does not go far enough. The cost of living rises are seriously affecting large numbers of our people who are entirely dependent on pensions and they are experiencing—as is shown by cases frequently brought to me—very considerable hardship in the present situation. I hope that, before the Bill is finally disposed of, the Government will find that, by searching round in other directions, they can discover some more money to increase the £4 million which it is proposed to devote to this project.

7.18 p.m.

Mr. George Thomas: When the Financial Secretary opened this debate this afternoon, he referred to a number of organisations which had been


making representations to the Treasury over a long period, concerning the dire need of those who were pensioners and who had once given service in one of the branches of the public service.
The National Union of Teachers has been very prominent in its dealings with the Treasury, in its support for the T.U.C. and in its co-operation with civil servants in seeking at least the minimum of a decent existence for those who have given long and honourable service in that profession. In the teaching profession it is customary to refer to pensioners as the "Old Guard," as those who, having given honourable service themselves, still seek to keep guard over the ideals of the profession.
These people, by the very nature of things, are not able to fight much for themselves. They are outside the normal activities of the local associations of the unions of the professions concerned. But none the less, during the past two years—not the last six months let me concede at once—there has been a rising tide of indignation in the teaching profession that so many of our colleagues have been existing in utter and abject poverty.
While we welcome the introduction of any measure which will improve the lot of these pensioners, we are bound to say that this is a disappointing Measure in view of the need which has to be met at the present time. Every hon. Member will be aware from his own bitter experience that it is no use expecting too much if it is a Bill for which the Treasury is responsible. I do not want to ride the hobby horse of another of my right hon. Friends, who says that all evil springs from the Treasury. It may be that he is correct; maybe he is not. But I suggest that the Treasury is undoubtedly responsible for the means and parsimonious approach to this increase in pensions.
A means test always works harshly on someone, and it usually works most harshly upon those at the bottom of the scale. It is bound to in the very nature of things; and those pensioners who will be prevented from obtaining the £26 increase, because already they are not getting enough money to entitle them to it, will be, I think, a standing disgrace to the Treasury for their approach to this Bill.
I hope that the Government will have second thoughts on this question, and I trust hon. Members will allow me at least to remind them of this; that my attitude on the means test in the 1947 Act was expressed quite as freely and as forcibly when I was on the Government side of the House as I seek to express it tonight now that I am on this side of the House. I think it is—dishonourable may be a strong word—but it is certainly unworthy of a Measure designed with the best of motives, to make life sweeter for those no longer contributing to the economic wealth and resources of our nation.
I realise that it is on Committee stage that we shall have to seek to alter certain details, but I am bound to bring the attention of the Government Front Bench to the £52 a year that dependents are allowed to earn before their income is taken into consideration. That £1 a week today is nothing compared with what it was at the original time of insertion into these Acts. We can trace it back to the 1944 Act, and the value of the £ at home—whatever is happening today abroad, and I am told by the newspapers it is getting better abroad—is getting worse at home.

Mr. James Callaghan: It is lower than it was at the time of the Budget.

Mr. Thomas: I never pose in this House as an economist, but I know that on the home front the value of the £ is deteriorating all the time. This £1 a week that dependants are allowed to earn is a derisory figure which I earnestly hope the Government will be prepared to reconsider.
This question of the date on which the scheme shall come into operation is important. Why it should be delayed till the autumn, till October, when hon. Members on both sides of the House concede that the matter is urgent now, is more than I can understand. Surely it is possible for the Government to expedite the work which has to be done to calculate the increase to be given to pensioners and to see that these people can have their urgent needs met sooner than 1st October.
With regard to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Droylsden (Mr. W. R. Williams), who speaks in the country with such eloquence on behalf


of the Post Office workers, I am convinced that if it were possible for the Government to find the necessary resources to back-date the payment for the doctors, it is bound to be possible for back-dating to take place for these pensioners. I feel that the Government have a special responsibility to these people for the depreciation of their superannuation. The Government came to power pledged to restore the value of the £. They are pleading for time and we must allow them time——

Mr. Houghton: And rope.

Mr. Thomas: —for the operation of their plans to take full effect. But in the meantime the only evident result of their policy, the only evident result of the Budget, has been to make life harder for these people; and it is wrong to tell them, "Hold on till 1st October and you will get a small increase."
My last point deals with the argument of the Financial Secretary that he had fixed this £26 a year because it worked out at 10s. per week and so it was an easy figure to calculate. The next figure down in the scale works out at 8s. 0¾d. a week. That is hardly an easy administrative figure.

Mr. Callaghan: Do not say that, they will make it 8½d.

Mr. Thomas: I notice that the £16 works out at 6s. 1½d. a week, and the £11 at 4s. 2¼d. a week. Is that an easy figure to administer? The £6 works out at 2s. 3d. a week. I think the Financial Secretary had no argument on that score, and I trust that when the Minister of Education replies she will concede that the figures are inadequate; that the date is too far retarded; that the allowance for dependants are insufficient and that they will be given further consideration during the Committee stage of the Bill.

7.29 p.m.

Mr. J. K. Vaughan-Morgan: I shall not detain the House for more than a few minutes, and I wish to devote my remarks entirely to the subject of the disregard, as it is called, that is to say, the amount of income of £52 per annum which is allowed. This disregard has been in existence since 1944. It has been

referred to by a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House during this debate and, to my dismay, I find myself considerably more in sympathy with the views expressed on this subject by the majority of hon. Members opposite than with those which have been expressed by hon. Members on these benches. The main difference between us is that I am a tyro in these matters. I can take no responsibility for what was introduced in an Act in 1944 or was maintained in an Act in 1947. That does not apply to some of the hon. Members opposite, with one or two exceptions, who have attacked the principle.
My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, referred in his speech, quite rightly, to the principle that the money should go first to those who are in the greatest need. He justified the means test on those grounds, and I think on those grounds alone. But before the matter is so summarily dismissed, we ought to have some regard to the other ancillary affects of this means test.
It has certain other social and economic effects. We ought to consider the effect on savings and investment. It is a serious deterrent to many civil servants, who, looking back over the last few years, if they have made efforts to build up their savings and to make investments, to think that because they have been successful—and they must have been very clever if they have been successful in their investments—their pension is accordingly reduced. That is unjust and in the long run it is unwise.
From the figures issued every week by the National Savings Movement, we see that week after week there is a net figure of dis-saving. That is inevitable in the period of inflation through which we have been going these last few years; it is bound to happen. But it is wrong, it is bad for our economy, and we should look at it very closely to see whether we should not abandon this principle of the means test altogether. In the long run it is bound to have bad effects on our economy if we discourage people from saving.
The second aspect to which I should like to give consideration is the circumstances of those who on their retirement take up some other form of work, either


to eke out their pension or to make up their income. That has become part of the pattern of employment in the years since the war. It was probably unknown in some respects before the war. It has now become more common, and it is a good thing. It is welcome and is encouraged as part of the Government's policy.
The Government have recently appointed a committee under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour to look into the whole question of retirement ages and to see what can be done to encourage people to stay longer at work. It seems to me that the Treasury are out of touch with the policy of the Ministry of Labour in this matter; they do not seem to know what has been going on during the last few months. It is time that they brought their views into line with the expressed policy of the Government in this regard.
Finally, I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education, who is to reply to the debate, to say what would be the cost of abolishing the means test altogether. I have tried to give the reasons why I think it is socially and economically harmful. We might, perhaps, be told what the cost would be in relation to the £4 million that the Bill is to cost. At the same time, I should like to know what would be the effect if the amount of the disregard were raised, as has been suggested, to, say, £104 per annum, which is a far more realistic figure and much more related to the decline in the value of money since the £52 disregard was first introduced. I hope that we shall have a real answer to the question of what we gain by having the means test at all, and I hope that in due course we shall have the good news that this blemish is to be removed from an otherwise excellent Bill.

7.35 p.m.

Mr. A. Hargreaves: Like most other hon. Members I welcome the Bill because, however inadequate its provisions may be, we all recognise that to those who are suffering and whose pensions are at the lower end of the scale the Bill means a great deal. I add my welcome, therefore, to the words that have been uttered in that strain this afternoon.
One of the points upon which I should like to say a word is the fact that new categories are brought into the Bill, especially those pensioners who during the time they were working were employed by the voluntary hospitals, and those who formerly were employees of the friendly and provident societies. The Government have, of course, accepted responsibility for the people now performing those duties. In my view, it is right that they should accept responsibility for the superannuitants who were formerly performing those duties and whose work has now been taken over by the Government.
I should, however, like the Financial Secretary to examine how far certain sections of the hospital and nursing professions have been overlooked in these provisions. I am thinking especially of nurses who were employed by district nursing associations, whose pensions would now be paid by local authorities, and of people who in the past were not employed directly by voluntary or municipal hospitals—people like Queen's nurses, who were outside the scope of the local authority hospitals or of the voluntary hospitals.
Those who retired prior to the war, or at the beginning of the war, retired when they were drawing salaries that were wretchedly low and which reflected themselves in the very poor pension and superannuation arrangements that were made for them. I should like the Financial Secretary to examine the pensions prospects that confront the people who were retired prior to the operation of the 1944 Act.
There is another body of people who are deserving of consideration and who, in my view, fall in precisely the same category. Here I want to declare my interest, because I have been a committee member of a superannuation fund for a good many years, having been elected by thousands of contributors. There are a number of us who function as a committee, and therefore my interest and knowledge of the work of superannuation is, perhaps, more closely in contact with the conditions which face superannuitants.
Apart from our regular monthly committee meetings, we have an annual meeting, to which are invited not only the present contributing membership of the fund, but also the superannuitants of


the fund. Therefore, the committee is confronted year by year with the cases of people who have been retired on superannuation for, in some cases, very many years.
As is the case in regard to most superannuable employment, the great difference in the salaries paid to these people before the war and the salaries paid in 1950 and 1952 is reflected in their superannuation. The result of that difference is that pensions or superannuation payments now based on present day salaries are very greatly in excess of the superannuation being drawn by people who have been on the fund for 10, 11 or 12 years.
Here is, I repeat, a case that is presented to us almost monthly. I am dealing here with the case of contributors to this special fund, but what I say applies to all railway servants. This special fund is the Railway Clearing System Superannuation Fund. There is an annual meeting to which superannuitants are invited, when the case which is concerned with their problems is presented on their behalf. In my view, they are in somewhat the same position as the people who are being brought in for the first time by the provisions of this Bill. They represent what I would call a new category of persons who, because of nationalisation, look to the Government for help in connection with their pre-war scales of superannuation.
Representations have been made, not alone by the committee but by the Railway Executive representatives who also sit on the committee of that fund on behalf of those superannuitants. Representations were made prior to nationalisation to the separate railway companies which had established superannuation funds, and since nationalisation representations have been made to the Railway Executive and to the British Transport Commission. That has been done not only by the superannuation committee members but by the trade unions whose members are members of the superannuation fund.
It can fairly be said that one can understand, at least to some degree, the position of the British Transport Commission when confronted with these demands, limited in this House as they have been, in their attempts to secure that their business shall be conducted on

the basis of an economic return for their services. As we know, this House has made it difficult for the British Transport Commission to recoup themselves fully. We have seen that in recent times.
Another point is that the British Transport Commission say, "Here we are dealing with members of superannuation funds, whose numbers are limited." The funds naturally do not cover all the employees. A large proportion of the people employed by the Commission are not members of any fund, and indeed are not pensionable. The people employed by the Road Haulage Executive have no superannuation provision made for them at all. Accordingly, it is fair to say that the Commission ought perhaps to make superannuation provision for those people to whom it is at present denied before they seek to improve the wretchedly low pensions of pre-war superannuitants.
Government action has made it much more difficult for the Commission to accept completely the obligations which they undertook under the 1947 Act. Further, it is an undoubted fact that these people in the railway superannuation funds represents a body of superannuitants, many of whom retired before the war and in the early years of the war, who have had no increase whatever. This Bill refers to increases already given in the Acts of 1944 and 1947. The people to whom I am referring have had no opportunity whatever of having their superannuation payments related in any way to the present-day cost of living.
Therefore, I would ask that some means be found of bringing this group of super-annuitants within the scope of the Bill, in the same way that other categories have been brought within its scope because of the Government's recognition that they have been brought within the ambit of Government service. I ask the Financial Secretary to examine the proposition which I am making, and to indicate whether within the scope of the Bill this undoubted hardship which exists among railway superannuitants who retired either prior to the war or in the early years of the war can be met.
There is another point which has not been so far mentioned in this debate, and which I think is worthy of consideration for a moment or two. I refer to the amount which will fall to be paid under this Bill by the local authorities. That


£2¼million cost, as the Bill is at present drawn, will, in cases within my knowledge, throw a very heavy burden indeed upon some authorities which have found it difficult in recent years to make provision to meet the deficiency in their superannuation fund. I am not in the least arguing that local authorities should be encouraged to attempt to evade their responsibilities in this connection, but I suggest that some of the local authorities at least will find it very difficult indeed to accept added obligations such as confront them in the terms of this Bill.
I reiterate the welcome which I gave to the Bill in my opening words. I ask that the cases of exceptional hardship and very great need to which I have attempted to draw attention shall be considered and a means sought whereby they can be brought within the provisions of this Bill.

7.49 p.m.

Mr. C. H. Gage: I am glad that this Bill has been introduced by a Conservative Government. I have a very high regard for the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall). I always listen to his views with respect, and I was therefore sorry to hear him today, at the outset of this debate, describe this Bill as a miserable and niggardly Bill. I thought that it was a little out of his character.
I know that any Government which introduces a Bill to increase anyone's remuneration or pension is taking on an ungrateful task. Those whose pensions have been increased say they have not been given enough, and those who have been left out say that they ought to have been included. Very few remember to say, "Thank you" for what has been done for them.
I agree with almost everything which has been said from both sides of the House this afternoon about the means test. Hon. Gentlemen have been indignant about it, though none of them has risen to the heights of eloquent indignation—not even the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas)—expressed in 1947 when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) blandly explained, for reasons that it was not necessary to go into at any great length, it was desirable to keep the means test.
The great fault of the means test is that it encourages extravagance and penalises thrift. That is the real argument against it. The person who has saved up his money is in danger of being penalised as compared with the person who has spent all he has had. It was interesting to notice that today almost every hon. Gentleman who has spoken attacked the means test. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley asked why it was in the Bill. He, if anyone, ought to know. It is no doubt in this Bill for the same reason that it was in the 1947 Bill—because the Treasury want it so.
It is the case, as the hon. Member for Cardiff, West said, that the Treasury are winning: we are not. I look forward to the time when this abominable tax will be taken from Measures relating to pensions. Having said that, and that many people are ungrateful to Governments which introduce Measures of this nature, I must confess that there are one or two matters which I wish to raise with the Minister of Education. We have heard a good deal about school teachers. I want to refer to an equally deserving body of people, namely the police whose pensions are dealt with in this Bill.
First, I wish to discuss the question of the police who are affected by the Police (Overseas Service) Act. I wish to know which of the various police affected by it will be assisted under this Bill. There were two kinds of policemen who went to serve under the Police in the Overseas Police Force. There were the non-reversionary police and the reversionary police, the difference being that the reversionary police were seconded from their own forces and allowed to count for pension their service abroad when they returned home.
But the non-reversionary police were senior officers. It was represented to them that they should assist overseas. They were required to resign before they were able to join the overseas force, and they resigned on a proportion of their pension. I am not clear whether the increases will apply to these non-reversionary police who resigned when it was represented to them that they should serve abroad until 1952, and that they should draw the proportion of the pension they have earned together with the salary they were paid in the Control Commission.
Of course, that was an attractive prospect, but I think that these men were harshly treated. In most cases they were not allowed to serve until 1952. They were declared redundant after two years and they had to come back home on the small pension which they had previously earned. In many cases they would still have been serving in their own police force. I am not clear from the Bill whether their pensions will be increased. This is important. Many of the men were fairly senior officers. It is important that they should know whether their pensions will be increased or whether only the pensions of the reversionary men who came back to the police forces will be increased.
I turn to a matter which to many of us who sit for Ulster constituencies is of the greatest importance. I wish to discuss the position of the Royal Irish Constabulary—what is left of them—and their widows. They are also affected by the provisions of this Bill. The Royal Irish Constabulary should need no introduction to this House. I do not think that I am exaggerating when I say that they were an heroic band of men who did their duty by the country who employed them when at times it was not very pleasant and not very easy to do.
When I tell the House that their casualty rate was one in 20 killed and one in 12 wounded, hon. Members will realise that that was probably the highest casualty rate of any force, including the Armed Forces, at that time. But there is a difference. While in 1916, 1917 and 1918 men were being killed, with their comrades in Flanders, their comrades in Flanders left widows who got a pension. The widows of these policemen who were made widows before 1918 got no pension. They never received a penny from the country which employed them.
I hope that this is a matter which it may be possible to remedy under the provisions of Clause 2 of this Bill. I see that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley shakes his head. I have great respect for his view.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I was not really shaking my head in disagreement. My memory is that we thought of this when the 1947 Act was under consideration. All we can do is to add increases. Of course,

the increase has to be the same as it is for other types of pensioners. The real trouble with the Royal Irish Constabulary is the smallness of the initial pension and the fact that many of the widows do not qualify.

Mr. Gage: The trouble is that the Police Pensions Act of 1921—the police did not get a pension before that date—gave pensions to the widows of policemen who had become widows after 1918, and it gave gratuities to the widows of policemen who had become widows before 1918. But as the Royal Irish Constabulary were then in the process of being disbanded, the widows of men who were killed before 1918 get nothing, though the widows of those killed in 1919 did get something. I think that has only to be stated for the House to realise the injustice that was done to these men.
Now I come to the second class of widows of the Royal Irish Constabulary, that is, the post-1918 widows, who did, in fact, obtain a pension. I think they are a class for whom something can be done under the Regulations to be made by the Secretary of State, because there is here a most extraordinary anomaly. On the disbandment of the Royal Irish Constabulary, many of these men went into the Royal Ulster Constabulary, because they were asked to do so, because the new force was being formed, and because their knowledge and discipline would be of value to it.
In 1948, when the National Insurance Act was being passed, provision was made for the pensions of widows of policemen to be brought up to 26s. per week at the discretion of the authorities, but the Royal Irish Constabulary were left out of that by an oversight. The result that has come about is this, and I think I can best show it by means of this illustration. Let us assume that two men joined the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1910. In 1922, when the force was disbanded, they joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary. One of these men married between 1910 and 1922; the other did not. After they had both joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the second man married, and we will also assume that they both died in 1940, leaving widows, and that they both had 30 years' service—12 years in the Royal Irish Constabulary and 18 years in the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
The widow of the man who married while he was serving in the Royal Ulster Constabulary can have her pension brought up to 26s. per week, while the widow of the man who married while he was serving in the Royal Irish Constabulary cannot do so. Nobody can justify that position, which has come about through one of these extraordinary legislative anomalies, because the basic pension that comes from R.U.C. funds is governed by the later Act of 1949 which was passed in Northern Ireland and is similar to our 1948 Act, and, therefore, the widow is qualified for an increase up to 26s. a week, while the widow of the other man, whose basic pension comes from R.I.C. funds, is not.
When I raised this matter with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) when he was Home Secretary, he made a very pertinent observation about it. He said that he well understood the ill feeling which would be caused where we had two widows living in the same street, whose husbands had had precisely the same service, one of whom received an increase in her pension, while the other did not. That is an anomaly which might well be remedied under the Regulations to be made in connection with this Bill.
Finally, I want to touch on only one other matter, which is concerned with the pensions of the Royal Irish Constabulary themselves. At the time of the disbanding of this force, by an Act of Parliament passed in this House in 1922, these men were given pensions commensurate with their length of service, but the Bill, as originally drafted, provided that their pensions would be suspended if they took up any Government service or any service which was remunerated by monies provided by Parliament, and the men were so informed.
Many of them would have liked to go into the Civil Service, and, indeed, they were ideal people to be taken into the Civil Service. They thought to themselves, "We cannot take any Government service, or our pensions will be suspended." At the same time, there came a tremendous demand for men to go into the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which was then being formed. It was explained to them that it was their patriotic

duty to do so, and that their knowledge and experience were required.
These men therefore thought, "Well, we are asked to go into the R.U.C., and. if we do not, our pensions will be suspended in any event if we go in for Government service." While they were being asked to do this, many of them were being threatened—indeed, many of them were being murdered—for doing it. In spite of that fact, large numbers of them, to their credit, did join and form the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and their knowledge, ability and discipline were of the highest value.
After they had joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Bill was amended—it did not become law until later—to provide that only those men who joined the police force should have their pensions suspended. The result was that these members of the Royal Irish Constabulary who had disregarded the appeal to do their duty and had gone into Government service, got their pension as well as their salary, and, indeed, such is the irony of the position that some of them, who went into the Civic Guard in Eire, got their pension as well as their salary. Only those men who did what their enemies tried to prevent them doing—because people were shot for doing what hon. Gentlemen in this House thought it was their duty to do—only those men were penalised and had their pensions suspended for the whole of the time they were serving in the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
I have always thought that that was a tremendous hardship. I have always hoped that, in some way, something could be done to assist these people. Unfortunately, I cannot see that this Bill will help them, except to give them the general increase in respect of their pensions. It will not make up to this very deserving body of men the pensions which they have lost all these years and which their fellows who have gone into some other form of employment have obtained.
The Royal Trish Constabulary needs no introduction from me. This force had a very high casualty rate. These men did their duty nobly at a time when it was difficult to do it. They had no memorial, nor do they ask for one. All they ask for is justice for themselves and their widows.

8.9 p.m.

Mr. William Ross: The hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Gage) started his speech rather unkindly, I think, with his reference to my right hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall), who had described this Bill as miserable and niggardly. If there was any implication in the speech which the hon. Member later delivered, it was that something very much worse than that had happened to men of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Mr. Gage: I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but all Governments since 1922 must bear the blame equally.

Mr. Ross: The whole point is that, in singling out my right hon. Friend, the hon. Gentleman showed remarkable neglect of all the other speeches that have been made in the debate, because my right hon. Friend only said in straightforward terms what was implied in every other speech that has been made, if we ignore one speech which came from the hon. Gentleman sitting beside him. The language he used is not nearly so strong as that of the letters I have been receiving from the people in my constituency who are affected by this Bill. I do not think there is any section of the population for whom hon. Members have more sympathy than these people who have almost frantically been trying to cope with the cost of living during the postwar years.
I think we should appreciate the difficulty of the task of the Treasury. It was partly touched on by certain hon. Members who have spoken in this debate. Here we have an all-embracing Bill covering public servants, postmen. Post Office workers, policemen, teachers and firemen. We are trying in this one Bill to cover many different superannuation schemes. Some of them are contributory and some non-contributory, and those which are contributory are not all contributory at the same rate. Again, in each scheme we have the further division of categories of people whose pensions are based upon entirely different rates because of the change in salaries throughout the years.
While appreciating the difficulties that the Treasury were in, and while I am grateful that they have recognised the need at this time for making some

increase, I cannot be as generous in my praise of the Bill as was the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Miss Ward), who warmly welcomed it. I must frankly confess my extreme dissatisfaction and disappointment that, while recognising the need for the Bill, the Government have given us a Bill of this nature and that in it they have been so niggardly and so mean.
In introducing the Bill this afternoon, the Financial Secretary said that it was to take account of the change in the value of money, in other words, that it was a matter of hardship caused by the rise in the cost of living. I think that in itself shows a certain kind of pessimism and' that the Government have given up all hope of making the dramatic gesture of bringing down the cost of living, and have instead brought in this Bill.
The point is that the 1944 and the 1947 Acts were to do the same thing, and, more or less, they did, because on average the 1947 Act increased pensions by about 20 per cent., which was equivalent to the rise in the cost of living. But from 1947 to the present time the cost of living has gone up by about 35 per cent., and no one is going to suggest that the scale of pension increases suggested in the Bill, even without the means test, will compensate for the rise in the cost of living. I really think that the Treasury and the Government should be ashamed of themselves for coming along with this Bill and for suggesting that it will meet this special hardship.
The sections of the population which the Bill is designed to help do not always ventilate their grievances, and in many cases their very reticence discloses the hardship which they suffer. I think it is our duty to put their case as fairly as we can. We had no indication from the Financial Secretary today on what the scale was based. It was all very neat and tidy, and there was a progressive diminution according to the formula of either £5 or £4, according to whether there was a dependant.
What is the reason behind it? The formula certainly cannot be based on salary increases over the years. It is difficult to determine why there should be the dividing line of 1st April, 1948. The suggestion that £6 is adequate compensation for the married pensioner who has at least one dependant and who started


drawing his pension in March of this year, is entirely disproved by the figures which the Chancellor gave. We must remember that the pensioner with one dependant is himself going to contribute 3s. a week to the Treasury through the loss of food subsidies. That comes to nearly £7 16s. a year. Then the Financial Secretary comes along and says that such people are going to get £6 subject to a means test. The thing is fantastic.
We have heard something about teachers' pensions. I have a fair knowledge of their position. They are people who contribute 5 per cent. of their salary in order, presumably, to get some effective protection against economic stress in retirement, and even to get something beyond a minimum subsistence. The position today is that many of these people are struggling to exist. According to the figures in the Report on Education for 1949, there are in Scotland alone over 2,000 male pensioners with less than £224 a year and 5,600 women pensioners with an average of £134 a year.
While that is bad enough when we consider that these pensions are the result of 40 years' contributions and service, the needs of that smaller section of the teaching profession who have had to retire owing to a breakdown in health are even more urgent. There are 137 men in this last category whose average pension is £126 a year and 836 women who are trying to exist on a pension averaging £91 a year. Can we wonder, in view of these conditions, that there are no young men or women today rushing to get into the teaching profession? Those thinking of entering the teaching profession are bound to be adversely affected by such considerations.
I am very glad that the Minister of Education is present, and I know that she is probably very sympathetic about this matter. I want her to use all the influence she has—and she must have some—with the Treasury to consider the effect of the plight of those of the teaching profession who have been forced to retire on such meagre pensions owing to ill health upon recruitment. The very fact that under the 1947 Act 78 per cent. of the retired teachers received the increase by right of hardship, subject to

a means test, shows that difficulty of the position.
Why has 1st April, 1948, been chosen as a sort of dividing line? How does that affect the old guard of teachers referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas)? They are the teachers who retired during and just after the war, the teachers whose pensionable salary was calculated according to the old rates of pay before we had the Teviot scale in Scotland and the new Burnham scale in England.
The maximum pension which women could obtain in those days was £150 a year, and that was obtainable only by those who were working in cities in Scotland and in the industrial counties. Those in the scattered rural areas usually retired with a pension of about £110 a year. The point is that they did not receive any of the benefit of the new salary scales. In their teaching life of 40 years they had the worst conditions that the schools of this country have ever known. We grouse today about school buildings and the size of classes, but they are as nothing compared with what those people had to endure.
Yet those people are lumped together with the people who retired in 1948 and who will have had three years on the new salary scale which will come into the calculation of the five-year period prior to retirement. Those people who retired earlier are bound to be about 72 or 73 years of age at least. They have had the rawest of raw deals all their lives in the matter of salary; and as a result of the way in which this Bill is framed they will have to pay the penalty now to the end of their lives. While I consider that the scales laid down in this Bill are 100 per cent. inadequate even to come anywhere near to parity with the cost of living, the people who retired before 1945 and between 1945 and 1947 are even more unjustly dealt with by this drawing of a dividing line at 1st April, 1948.
I hope that when we come to the Committee stage the Treasury will not be as obdurate as we have known them to be in the past. I do not know whether the smile on the face of the Financial Secretary is one which should lead me to hope for a change of heart or whether it is a smile which should lead me to


despair. If there is no change of heart, it will certainly not be for the want of effort on the part of those on this side of the House. Judging by the speeches which have been made from this side, I am hopeful that the joint efforts of the House will improve the situation of all who are affected by this Bill and will bring a greater measure of social well-being and comfort to those older pensioners, whether they be teachers or Post Office workers, who make up those sections of the community who have had the worst of it on fixed pensions during the last 10 years.

8.24 p.m.

Mr. Norman Cole: We should welcome the introduction of this Bill if only for the reason that it is five years since we have had a Bill dealing with this subject. It was high time that we had such a Measure to make up the leeway of the intervening years.
I should like to touch upon one point about pensions which, to my knowledge, has not yet been referred to in this debate. There is envisaged in every salary paid to every pensionable employee the fact that a condition of that salary is the prospect of and the contract for a pension on retirement. As hon. Members know, that is a condition which is taken into account very much by those who put their sons and daughters into industry as opposed to local government or the Civil Service. I should like to draw the Government's attention to the need to maintain the quality of the contract and of the pension so as to ensure that we have a flow of people into local government and the Civil Service.
In view of that contract which is implicit in pensionable service, I regret very much that it has not been possible to make larger increases in these pensions. I realise that there is a limited amount of money available for this purpose, but I ask those responsible for these payments whether it is not possible to grant increases in the scale more commensurate with the change in conditions during the past five years.
By the same token, I regret that it has been necessary to perpetuate the principle of the means test laid down in the 1947 Act. If it is not possible to increase the scales laid down in the Schedule to this Bill, at least some greater disregard might

be allowed when computing the amount on which the pension is to be based. In many cases the amount of disregard allowed in this Bill might mean a hardship to those concerned. I think that the cost to the State would not be considerable if that disregard were increased to something more commensurate with present conditions.
I endorse what has been said from the other side of the House about the operative date of this Bill. I, too, believe that it might be put back to 1st April this year rather than put forward to 1st October. Five years have gone by since the last increases were put on the Statute Book and this small concession of a few months at a small cost to the Treasury might be allowed in the course of the passage of this Bill.
I wish the Bill well. I have many pensioners in my constituency who will be affected by it and who will welcome the fact that, after this long period of five years, this Bill has been introduced. I hope that before it is passed into law it will be possible to add some of the improvements suggested by hon. Members in the course of this debate and so make the lot of the pensioners even better than is envisaged in this Bill.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. A. Edward Davies: I wish to endorse the plea of the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole), and to ask whether it is not possible to give the limited benefit of this Bill to pensioners before 1st October. These people have been waiting a very long time; they are having a very thin time, and have been, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) showed us, for a number of years. He referred to pensions of £91 and £110, and it does not take much imagination to see what a time they must be having in these difficult days in trying to make ends meet. Also, they are not paid very frequently; they are paid quarterly, and that does not help matters.
Why cannot the date of 1st October be improved upon? In introducing the Bill the Financial Secretary said it was because of the complicated nature of the operation; that some consideration had been given to this but that it was not found to be a practical proposition to do it earlier. Recently we have had before


the House a number of equally complicated Measures, and some even more complicated. For example, a short time ago we had the National Assistance Draft Regulations, and we were glad to know that it was possible to introduce these new scales from 16th June. It was only a few weeks ago when we had the first knowledge of the Government's intentions.
I do not advance these instances to complain that they ought to have been delayed until October, but to suggest that they must have been very complicated operations, and I hope that serious attention will be given to this matter. If it is not possible to pay out before 1st October, cannot there be some backdating of the Measure to give credit to these good folk so that they will have the money a bit later in the year?
The Financial Secretary said that, apart from the categories enumerated in the Bill—the civil servants, local government officers, policemen and firemen—there were two other categories who would benefit by its provisions. He referred to the staffs of the voluntary hospitals and employees of the friendly and provident societies. My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Hargreaves) has drawn attention to the difficulty of another well-deserving section of the community. Unfortunately, in these times of rising prices, it is the person with a small annuity who catches the cold, who is suffering worst. We know from our knowledge of the railway industry—and it may be so in other industries—of men and women who before the war retired on a small annuity of, say, £120 a year or a little bit more.

Mr. G. Lindgren: Some on less.

Mr. Davies: And some on less. They are having a very thin time indeed, because none of these good folk qualifies for any statutory benefit. They joined the service many years ago; because there was a pension at the end of it, it was an attractive occupation, and I presume they took that into account when they joined the service; they felt it was some provision against the time when they would have to stop working.
In the event, since 1937 and 1938 their income has been very severely restricted

and inadequate to their needs. Assume that a man gets a pension of £120—some, we are told, get less—which is 46s. a week. The other day we had before the House the National Assistance Draft Regulations—and we were glad that they offered some improvement—which give a man and his wife 59s. a week and a rent allowance in addition.
Here is a contributory scheme for people who have served the public well, who get £120 a year, or 46s. a week, but because they were in a certain occupation they were exempted from the requirement to join a statutory scheme of insurance. Therefore, they have no call upon any statutory benefit, and their only alternative is to go to the National Assistance Board. That must be done by anybody getting less than 59s. a week with rent to pay, and perhaps sickness in the house.
I have in mind an old colleague of mine who had to work all his life on the railway, and who had an invalid wife requiring special sustenance and treatment. In the course of time he became almost blind, but he had to subsist on his 46s. a week, with no right to a statutory benefit; and I daresay he was too proud to go to the National Assistance Board. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock so rightly said, these good folk are reticent about their conditions. We realise the problems of the Ministry of Transport in this case.
The Financial Secretary, while making some provisions for the folk in the voluntary hospitals and the friendly and provident societies, distinguished them from what he called the people in the employment of the trading services, where they are on a profit and loss basis. I would say that there are a limited number of people here involved, who have every right, as I have demonstrated, to go to the National Assistance Board and to ask to be treated equally well as the unfortunate folk who have no other income.
If these people find themselves in the position of having belonged to a private section of industry which has been taken over by the State in the last few years and they are thus deprived of going to their erstwhile employers, they have some claim upon us or upon somebody for consideration, and I want to know where the Financial Secretary draws a line in these matters.
What is the difference between the man or woman who has served in a public industry and finds himself or herself in that position, for the reasons I have given, and someone in another service whom he is prepared to accept? The fact is that the whole subject of superannuation, pensions, contributions, National Assistance and insurance wants examination and some daylight let into it. One hon. Member described it the other day as a Ruritanian situation. I hope that, although the hon. Gentleman may not be able to meet us in this matter, he has listened carefully to what we have said and that he will use his influence with the Treasury and his colleagues in the Government to give some consideration to the unfortunate people to whom I have referred.

8.37 p.m.

Mr. Charles Doughty: I do not want to detain the House, but I should like to welcome this Bill as a step in the right direction. While listening to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), who is no longer in his place, I had to read the Bill again to make certain that we were increasing the pensions and not decreasing them. We are, in fact, increasing them on behalf of a very deserving section of the community, namely, the older class of pensioners.
In many cases, the younger pensioners who have just qualified for pensions, apart from having a larger pension, are able to supplement them by obtaining employment. We always like to do something which we are able to do in life, and this Bill is no exception to that general rule. I think that the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Gage) said that those who bring in Bills for increases of this kind get no gratitude and, having listened to a large part of this debate, I am inclined to agree with that remark.
It is in fact an increase in the right direction and, in view of the very serious financial situation of the country—and as hon. Members have said that this is not to be a political debate, I will not deal with that matter further—it is clearly not possible to do more than has been done at the present moment. It is important, however, that these pensioners, small as they will find the increases to be, should notice that the cost of living, which so vitally affects this class of person, is

decreasing so rapidly that whereas they saw until recently their pensions becoming rapidly less and less, now the diminution is becoming much slower. So we welcome this Bill very much indeed.
There are, however, certain matters on which I should like to ask the Financial Secretary one or two questions. I agree with the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Vaughan-Morgan) who said that this Clause, which reduces the amount of increase for people with an income above a certain level, is undesirable because it discourages thrift, and the more we discourage thrift the more we are discouraging one of the most sound of English virtues—saving for one's old age. If people save and then find they are penalised because of it, we shall lose one of our strongest attributes. The Government have already been asked what it would cost to omit the provision. If the sum is so small that this can be done we shall do a great deal of good by encouraging thrift. I hope it will be done.
I endorse what has been said about railway workers who retired in days when they were working for companies whose names we still treat with affection though they are no longer with us. I have written to the Financial Secretary about this on one or two occasions, and the answer is always "We have no control over the Transport Commission." If the Transport Commission has ears—I sometimes doubt that it has—I ask it to hear the words of this House.

Mr. Ellis Smith: What about the engineers, the pottery workers and the cotton workers?

Mr. Doughty: They are not in the Transport Commission and so I cannot ask the Transport Commission to listen to their complaints, though I have no doubt they are justified. The men whose employers have ceased to exist are not subject to the advantages of the Bill because they were not public servants in the ordinary sense of the term, and they are left between the devil and the deep blue sea. I leave the Transport Commission to decide which it is, and urge it to do what it can for the old faithful employees of the former railway companies.
The old L.C.C. hospital staffs and other hospital staffs are covered by the Bill and will, no doubt, welcome this as much as do others who are finding life difficult in


their old age. I hope that the provisions of the Bill will to some extent relieve them. I welcome the Bill and shall support it.

8.42 p.m.

Mr. George Wigg: The hon. Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) stumbled over a cliché when he told the House that the Bill was an increase in the right direction. That was not quite what he meant, unless he will tell us when an increase can go in the wrong direction.

Mr. Doughty: I can tell the hon. Gentleman the difference between plus and minus. A minus increase goes in the wrong direction but a plus increase, like this one, goes in the right direction.

Mr. Wigg: The hon. Gentleman's explanation is about as clear as his earlier statement.
Hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House have dwelt on categories of workers who have had the advantage of remaining to the end of their working lives in relatively lucrative employment and have established homes and settled down in the localities where they were working. The Bill deals with another category which has not had that advantage. The penultimate paragraph of the Explanatory Memorandum says:
As with the existing Pensions (Increase) Acts, similar increases will be granted by Prerogative Instruments outside the Bill to former members of the Forces. The cost in their case is estimated at £2 million per annum, but the full amount will not become payable immediately, because increase is not normally payable until the pensioner reaches the age of 60.
I shall soon be out of order if I say much about members of the Forces. Yet it is clear that the principles laid down in the Bill govern not only the pensioners mentioned in the First Schedule but also increases which former members of the Armed Forces will not receive. The case of former members of the Forces can never be put in the House. There is no Bill for them, and the Prerogative is not tabled in this House, so that we never get an opportunity, except on the occasion when we debate annually the Service Estimates, to raise the many anomalies which exist in Service pensions and which are very great indeed.
I ought to declare my own interest, because it is just conceivable that I might possibly benefit by this provision. I am not speaking on my own behalf, but on behalf of the many thousands of former members of the Forces, who, when they joined the Forces, thought that at the end of their working life they were going to get a square deal, just as the teachers, the postmen and the policemen thought. Yet when the time came they found that they were getting anything but a square deal, and they could not do anything about it.
The results did not end there. One of the reasons for the lack of recruits to the Armed Forces, and also of teachers and of those other categories mentioned in the First Schedule, is that Governments in the past—and, let it be said, Conservative Governments for the most part—have not thought clearly on this. These people depended on the honesty of previous Governments to get a square deal and they have not got it.
I do not believe that this Government will tackle the problem, but in the not-far-distant future once again we shall have a Labour Government. We shall not tackle this problem in any piecemeal fashion; we shall have a Ministry of Pensions which will bring within its ambit all the pensions, not only those payable under the First Schedule but those payable to the Armed Forces and every branch of the public service, so that the whole problem can be looked at. We shall realise that what we are granting is not a pension, but a deferred payment.
The young man who joined the Armed Forces, the police, the teaching profession or the fire service anticipated a square deal, even though the day when he would get it seemed a long way ahead. He anticipated that if he gave loyal, honest and honourable service, then at the end of the day he or his dependants would be looked after. What do we find? Once again the Government have come to the House, having aroused very great hopes of the increases which they proposed to give, and once again they have produced the rather pitiable increases which are embodied in this Bill.
The disappointment that is felt does not merely end in a protest by those who consider themselves robbed. The effect permeates the whole of the public service, because many men, advising their sons


and daughters as to their future career, will tell them, "Look what has happened to us. Make sure you avoid the same kind of treatment." I hope, therefore—and here I address my remarks to my hon. Friends on this side of the House—that my hon. Friends will join with me in the not-too-distant future when we can put pressure on a Labour Government in order to right a wrong which has been perpetrated during the last 40 or 50 years.

8.48 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Houghton: The remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) are doubly welcome, because he has referred to an aspect of this Bill which has not been mentioned very much in the course of our debate today. We miss the contributions by many hon. Members on both sides of the House which we are accustomed to hear when matters affecting the Armed Forces are under consideration. I have sat through all the speeches, and I am sure hon. Members will agree that we have had a thorough, serious, thoughtful, constructive but critical debate.
This Bill has been welcomed from both sides of the House, but not a single hon. Member has given it unqualified approval. I thought, judging by the early part of his speech, that the hon. Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) was going to turn completely averse and associate himself with the observations of my own Member, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Vaughan-Morgan), who criticised one of the features of this Bill, namely, that part where it lays down that a pensioner's income is to be disregarded in arriving at his total income for the purposes of the overriding conditions of this Bill. Try as he did, without having said a single word about the Bill, he failed miserably in the end.
I am sure that the right hon. Lady and the Financial Secretary will both take note of what has been said in this debate. I wish that the Financial Resolution were not drawn in terms which, if left unaltered, will preclude the alterations which have been pressed upon the Financial Secretary from both sides of the House. We shall come to that point shortly. Before coming to the contents of the Bill, I want to address a remark or two especially to the Financial Secretary.
Is legislation the most suitable and satisfactory way of dealing with the pensions of State servants? This is a serious point, which was put by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), when he described the comprehensive and complex nature of the Bill, with which we are trying to put an umbrella over a very wide variety of superannuation schemes in the public services. When the wages and salaries of public servants are under discussion they do not come before this House. The last thing this House would wish is to become an appeal tribunal or arbitration court dealing with matters which it is much better to leave to negotiation and agreement between workers and employers.
Recently a wage settlement was reached in the Civil Service which cost the Exchequer more than double the whole of the annual pension bill for the Civil Service, yet that was dealt with by negotiation in the ordinary way. We are discussing a very much smaller amount of public expenditure now, merely because it happens to be a superannuation and pensions matter. This is the third superannuation change we have had since the war, solely for maintaining the value of superannuation payments.
This matter is outside the scope of the negotiating machinery of the Civil Service National Whitley Council, of which, I ought to disclose, I have long been a member. It is outside the scope of the Burnham Committee and of the Whitley Councils for the local government service. We cannot arbitrate in the matter of superannuation and pensions. However grievous the discontent may be with the level of superannuation, there is no tribunal to which the vast army of public servants can go except this House.
This remedy depends upon the expedients of the political situation, the Parliamentary situation, whether there is going to be a general election, whether there may be a general election, or what the public will say if there is one. The minds of hon. Gentlemen have to be brought to bear upon a matter which, basically and fundamentally, is one of conditions of service, and should be negotiated between the workers and their employers. For this purpose, this House is acting today as the employer, in the name of the Crown, of the public services. We are now, so to speak, a meeting of shareholders, with the directors sitting on the


Front Bench and the leaders of the commute of shareholders on the Front Bench opposite them.
We are debating matters which are part and parcel of the conditions of this great public service to which this House frequently and deservedly pays tribute. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that he should consult with his right hon. Friend the Chancellor to see whether there is a better way of doing this. He should consider whether an enabling Measure would permit of regulations to be made by the Treasury or by the appropriate authority after proper discussion and negotiation with the workers concerned.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Have they recently put this suggestion up to the Treasury?

Mr. Houghton: No, I am putting it to the Treasury now. It is not within the scope of the constitution of the Staff Side of the National Whitley Council to suggest to the Government or to this House that it should surrender its legislative control of the superannuation of the Civil Service. It might be regarded as presumptuous, if not impertinent. Since, however, I am not inhibited in either direction, I would say that it is a matter which should receive the consideration of Her Majesty's Government.
The hon. and gallant Member for Horncastle (Commander Maitland), my hon. Friend the Member for Waithamstow, East (Mr. Wallace) and several other hon. Members have referred to superannuation in the public service as being an important factor in its conditions and in the inducement which is offered to candidates to enter Her Majesty's service. Part of the conditions of service which are held out as an attraction to those who are considering entering the Civil Service, the local government service and the teaching profession is that at the end of a long and continuous period of service there will be a pension which, calculated on an accepted basis, combining length of service with pay at its conclusion, will give reasonable expectation of a pension providing a standard of life suitable to the position and length of service of the officer concerned.
There is no doubt that the failure of present superannuation arrangements to

give that confidence to intending candidates is responsible for a considerable reluctance to enter Her Majesty's Civil Service, the teaching profession, local government service and the Armed Forces of the Crown at the present time. There is undoubtedly an all round slump in recruitment to these posts, and it is one aspect of conditions of service which should receive the close attention of Her Majesty's Government.

Commander Maitland: What the hon. Gentleman is saying is most interesting. Would he distinguish between contributory pensions and non-contributory pensions, because they have to be tackled from a different angle. How much of his remarks apply to which?

Mr. Houghton: There are many different considerations arising as between a contributory and a non-contributory pension. So far as the non-contributory pension is concerned, although many people think that those who are in non-contributory pension schemes do not pay for their pensions, the truth is that they do; because as soon as they negotiate with the Treasury or go before an arbitration tribunal, the value of the pension is taken into account. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove) said, that pension is deferred pay and, when it comes to be paid, retired public servants expect it to have a currency in purchasing power which will not leave them considerably worse off than they expected to be, and as they were assured they would be by the conditions laid down at the time of entry.
What are the principles underlying our approach to this Bill? The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) invited us on these benches to "come clean." He said that we must be frank about the question as to whether we would spread the resources over a wider field or give relief to the needy cases. Our approach—my approach, at all events—to this matter is: What is an honourable obligation as between employer and employee when the time of retirement comes?
If the hon. Member is suggesting that in this gigantic enterprise of The United Kingdom Limited we have only a certain sum of money that we can disperse on pensions, and he is asking us to say to


whom that restricted amount should go, then clearly on these benches we would say without hesitation that it must go to those most in need. That would be the principle underlying our approach to this matter.

Mr. Powell: I take it, then, that the hon. Member draws the conclusion of, and is in favour of, what is called the means test in this case?

Mr. Houghton: Not at all. What I am about to say is that I do not accept the proposition that there is only xpounds that can be devoted to the pensions under the Bill.
It is always a complex matter, from which there can be many opinions on the same question: Can the country afford it? If I am asked to dwell upon whether the country can afford more than the expenditure which is provided for in the Bill, I should have to roam over the whole economic situation and especially examine very critically indeed the financial policy of the Government. I should ask, for instance, whether it was necessary to distribute to people with high incomes——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hopkin Morris): I hope that the hon. Member will not be tempted to pursue that.

Mr. Houghton: That just shows, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, how irrelevant was the observation by the hon. Member in the first instance. I pass from his irrelevant comment and say that the State should find the amount of money to provide a reasonable basis for compensation for loss of purchasing power of the pensions of its own employees.
The Financial Secretary referred to the higher benefit which is coming under the Bill than that mentioned by his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget speech. But we on these benches, while grateful for the small, meagre increase beyond the amount mentioned in the Budget speech of the right hon. Gentleman, still do not agree that this £26 is enough.
In the speech of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer in introducing the Pensions (Increase) Bill in 1944, Sir John Anderson, now Lord Waverley, defined the principles upon which His Majesty's Government were then approaching this problem. He said that it was

to provide increases for the lower ranges of pensions, in order, so far as may be practicable, to mitigate really severe hardship.
As against that statement of principle, however, there was another which was made by Mr. Pethick-Lawrence, now Lord Pethick-Lawrence, who on the Second Reading of the Bill said:
I am in agreement with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that legalistically interpreted, the public pensioner has no precise right to any increase in his pension. The strict law of his contract has been kept, but the fact is that underlying all contracts for payment at some future date there is an assumption, unwritten and unspecified, but nevertheless implied. That is the stability of the purchasing power of money. Unless this is substantially maintained all time-contracts are meaningless."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd March, 1944; Vol. 397, c. 1761, 1777.]
We have to approach this matter combining three principles: the principle of the reasonable obligation of an employer to his retired servants who have given long and faithful service to him; the principle of alleviating the severest hardship more liberally, perhaps, than the hardship which is not so serious; and thirdly, the principle that even over a wide range of pensions benefits, there should be some compensation for the fall in the purchasing power of money, even though really grievous hardship is not present.
After all, as the Prime Minister said a few days ago, quoting, I think, the late Earl Baldwin about the many-sidedness of truth, we would agree that hardship is of great variety and of varying degrees of depth. Hardship is relative. There is no doubt that some pensioners, although probably outside the scope of this Bill, are suffering considerable hardship because their standard of life has collapsed in the present economic situation. They are not enjoying the fruits of their retirement which they understood to be part of the expectation of their contract of service.
Is the amount enough? No, Sir, it is not. Why is it not enough? It does not compensate for the rise in the cost of living since the last pension increase in 1947. The cost of living has risen 35 per cent. since then and the maximum increase that this Bill provides is an increase of less than 24 per cent., tapering down at the £530 point to 3.77 per cent., and nothing after that.
The Financial Secretary said that this Bill brought in categories of people who were excluded from the previous Act,


but the Bill also excludes from benefit under this Measure people who received a benefit in the 1944 and 1947 Acts. I refer to the special alternative, to the hardship scheme contained in Section 2 of the 1944 Act and in Section 3 (3) of the 1947 Act. There there was a special class of citizens for whom a percentage increase in their basic pension was provided for on both occasions without a means test and with a ceiling much higher than that imposed for the other beneficiaries under previous Acts.
The Government on this occasion have left that category of civil servants outside any further benefit under the present Bill. The hon. Member for Tynemouth (Miss Ward) followed her customary debating tactics of first striking a blow at those of us on these benches and then, while we were wondering what had happened to us, striking a blow at her Front Bench.

Miss Ward: Quite impartial.

Mr. Houghton: But on this occasion the hon. Lady was more severe on these benches than on hon. Members opposite.

Miss Ward: They are making amends.

Mr. Houghton: In the course of her remarks the hon. Lady asked a question: "The Treasury, are they human?" I suppose I ought to know. I have had 30 years close contact with them, and I can assure the Financial Secretary that when he has had as long as I have in dealings with the Treasury there will be much less spring in his step than there is now.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: It has not had that effect on the hon. Member.

Mr. Houghton: The hon. Gentleman has no idea how, comparatively speaking, my feet drag compared with his. My first contact with the Treasury was when Sir Russell Scott was Controller of Establishments. He confessed, some hon. Members may remember, to being an inverted Micawber, merely waiting for something to turn down. He bequeathed that unenviable reputation to all his successors. I say to the hon. Lady, in answer to her question, the Treasury have been much more human in the last six years of the Labour Government than I have ever known them before. They have certainly not been allowed to play their customary tricks on the public service

under the Labour Government as they used to previously.

Miss Ward: The Treasury had to do something to overcome the difficulties imposed on the country by the policy of the Socialist Cabinet.

Mr. Houghton: If the hon. Lady is asking me why the Government are doing something now, I will say that they are doing something now in advance of the further rise in the cost of living which their own policy makes inevitable; and they are anxious to give the increases while they can give as little as possible. That really is the principle underlying the whole approach of Her Majesty's Government to improvements in the social services, the National Assistance scales and the National Insurance benefits, as well as the pension increases under this Bill. We say therefore that the amount of the pension should be substantially increased, and we look for the opportunity of doing that during the Committee stage.
The next point is whether the limits of income are right in principle or fair in the incidence proposed under this Bill. I agree with what a number of hon. Members said about the suitability of retaining this feature of the Bill at all. But it is in the Money Resolution, and obvious difficulties lie ahead. Nothing is resented more deeply in the public service than the imposition of a means test—not a needs test, but a means test—which has sole regard to their total income without any regard for their needs, and which imposes an overriding limit on the benefit they can get under this Bill.
It is no use hon. Gentlemen opposite saying, "Ah, but it was in the 1944 Act; it was in the 1947 Act." Whenever we suggest a change or an improvement, hon. Gentlemen opposite are tempted to say. "You did not change it," or. "It was in your Bill," or. "You did it when you were in office." But are hon. Gentlemen finding great satisfaction in being able to make that kind of reproach? Their own actions should be beyond reproach, because our turn is coming, when we probably shall get more satisfaction than they out of reproaches for the failure of the present Government to do the right thing. And, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon said, virtue in their own right——

Mr. Gower: What does the hon. Member consider most important, that his party should have its turn, as he described it, or that the country should remain solvent?

Mr. Houghton: In my humble opinion the best interests of the nation and the Labour Government are synonymous terms.
The overriding limit of income should go, and I think also that it follows that with it would be removed this vexatious question of the disregard of the first £52 of income. But if this objectionable feature of the Bill is retained—which is a humiliation to many thousands of public servants, who feel this is not the treatment to which they should be subjected by the Government and the country—surely the disregard of the first £52 of other income should be increased. It has been increased in other directions, and there is every justification for greater latitude in the provisions of this Bill.
There are two other points. One is the extension of the time scope of the proposals. That is a term invented by the Treasury—they should never be allowed to utter anything without it being vetted by Sir Ernest Gower. They describe the Second Schedule of the Bill as an extension of the time scope of the provisions of the Bill; that is to say, it allows for a modified increase to be given where the pension has begun on a date later than 1st April, 1948.
I quite appreciate the principle underlying this downward escalator approach. Whether they are the right amounts in the right time intervals needs to be more thoroughly examined when we come to the Committee stage. But I think that in principle one must accept some justification for reducing the pension increase in most cases where retirement has been so recent as to enable the initial pension to be calculated on the higher salary level. I express no opinion whether the incidence is right and fair, pending further examination.
Also, there is the question of the date of operation. Why should it be 1st October, 1952? Is this related to the increases which are being given in National Insurance benefits? If so, I should like to point out that the National Insurance benefits were increased for the bulk of retirement and widows' pensions

last October. If there is to be any relationship between those two that factor must be borne in mind. If, of course, it is merely for administrative convenience, I suggest that some retrospection is justified on the facts of the case, and it ought to be given. It was given on two previous occasions. There are no insuperable administrative difficulties now which make it impossible to give some degree of back-dating to the provisions of this Bill.
I admit that the great virtue in the mind of the Financial Secretary of the amount of £26 a year is that it makes the arithmetic so much easier—it is exactly 10s. a week. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for doing that sum loudly for the benefit of all the illiterates in the House. It is exactly 10s. a week, but the Treasury which can manufacture the Excess Profits Levy can surely cope with some of the vulgar fractions and decimals which may be involved in dealing with a pension increase which is not of quite such a tidy amount.
One of the vices of the Treasury is their addiction to nice round figures, usually on the low side—kept on the low side because they are nice and round. They are anxious not to have them higher if they become awkward and square or rectangular or triangular, or if they present some other geometrical inconvenience.
I hope that consideration can be given to this matter. This Bill is all right as far as it goes, but it does not go anything like far enough. There are some features which should now be eradicated from our pension law. They are resented. They inflict humiliation on public servants of long service and faithful devotion to the State. They are no longer justified in the light of present conditions. The amount given falls below the barest increase necessary at the lower end of the pension scale to meet the increased cost of living. It bears no relation to the increase in wages which has taken place since 1947.
The pensioners of the State are not a pressure group. They have no big trade unions to knock at the door loudly and consistently and go to arbitration or take other courses open to trade unions in the course of their business. They exert little or no pressure upon the House. They do not importune hon.


Members. They wait patiently outside and hope that honour and decency will prevail in this House and that we will see that this large number of retired public servants are given justice and a square deal at the hands of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House.
We must urge upon Her Majesty's Government, in the name of hon. Gentlement opposite, quite apart from hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House, that it is necessary to improve this Bill before it reaches the Statute Book. Otherwise it will be another blot on the records of this House for not having treated its retired public servants as fairly and honourably as I am sure that the public at large would wish us to do.

9.20 p.m.

The Minister of Education (Miss Florence Horsbrugh): The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) told us a great deal about the difficulties of dealing with the Treasury. He said how inhuman it was. I am sure, however, that every hon. and right hon. Member has realised that, in spite of the inhuman treatment and all the other difficulties, the hon. Gentleman could still put forward with fulness and vigour all, or nearly all, that he felt about the Treasury and a great deal about what he felt on this Bill and of the pensioners.
I think that, when we look back on this debate—and I think we shall come to the same conclusion on reading it in HANSARD tomorrow—we shall find that the Bill has been welcomed by practically every hon. Member who has spoken, though almost every one has said that it should have gone further. I confess that that is exactly what I thought would be said. Of course, it is quite natural that it should be said, because it is quite clear that, if it were possible to pay out more for pensioners from the Exchequer and from local government funds, we would all like to do it.
In some of the speeches we have heard, the suggestion has been made that we could improve our pension law in relation to the different Acts which have been passed. It has been pointed out by several hon. Members that various anomalies could be put right. But this Bill does not deal with the various anomalies and does not try to deal with

all the various Pensions Acts. It really does quite simply one thing; it tries to arrange the best way of giving a supplement to State pensioners and local government pensioners who, having retired some years ago on a lower salary, are not receiving anything like the same pension as those who retired on the higher salaries later. That is the aim of the Bill.
I know that a good many hon. and right hon. Gentlemen have pointed out that they consider that the supplement which is suggested in this Bill does not deal with the whole of the rise in the cost of living. They have said, "After all, this is a contract between the Government and their employees—a contract that there will be a pension of a certain amount—and it is up to the Government to see that, when that pension is paid, and all the time it is being enjoyed, the value of the pension shall be the same." That has been the argument of a good many hon. Members who have also said that, after all, a pension is simply deferred pay.
Both these points were answered by hon. Members who spoke from this side of the House, and particularly by the hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower), who pointed out that, if the pay had not been deferred but had been invested, the beneficiaries would certainly find now that, because of the fall in the value of money, they were not able to buy as much as they did before. I think we must face the situation that no Government could at any time say that they were absolutely bound to see that any pension paid by them would have exactly the same value 10, 20 or even 30 years later and that they felt themselves bound, if there was any fall in the value of money, to make it up. That is the first fact that we have to face.
Having faced that fact, we are trying in this way to see whether, when the value of money has fallen and when there is real hardship, we can at any rate give a supplement to the pensioner so as to decrease that hardship; but we are not saying—and my hon. Friend, in introducing the Bill, made this very clear—that all pensioners of the State must have their full value of pension without any regard to a fall in the value of money, and they alone in this country. We would all agree that it would not be


fair, because it really means that would be saying to the taxpayers and ratepayers of this country that the difficulties caused by the fall in the value of money are not to fall on State pensioners but that we have to get rid of their difficulties at the expense of the taxpayers and ratepayers.
We all know that that sort of thing is quite impossible. The whole community is bearing the burden of the fall in the value of money today. We are trying to decrease the hardship of these pensioners in the lower pension groups because of the hardship which we know they are suffering, and this scheme is merely giving a supplement to those people.
I know it may be said that we should have gone further. Indeed, right hon. and hon. Members have asked why we did not go further. They have said, "We welcome the Bill, but we would rather have more than £26; we would rather have no income level, and rather have more than the £52. Push them all up." The answer, quite clearly, is that what we are trying to do is to help those who are up against real hardship as State pensioners. But we cannot consider the other income groups because we do not feel that we should take from the taxpayers and the ratepayers the money that would be necessary to do that. We feel that we must deal with real hardship.
The right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) raised several points when he opened the debate for the Opposition. He, like every right hon. and hon. Member opposite, said that he did not want a means test or any discussion as to the level of income—in other words, increase all the pensions. At the beginning of his speech he said, as did several other hon. Members, that he welcomed the Bill, but later he said that it was meagre and mean, and that he wanted its provisions to take effect earlier than 1st October.
I have listened to the debate and I realise the sincerity and earnestness of all hon. Members who have taken part in it. They are really anxious that these people who, some have said, have been suffering for several years past should have this benefit as soon as possible. But it strikes me as strange that this subject was not raised last year or the year before. Why have hon. Members opposite only now found out that this is a pressing

matter and that there is this great need among certain sections of pensioners? Why could they not have found what they have called "this modest amount of money" last year or the year before in order to deal with the difficulty?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I am much obliged to the right hon. Lady for giving way. She surely realises, because her hon. Friend the Financial Secretary made this quite clear in his very lucid speech this afternoon, what has really brought this matter to a head. It is the fact that when the Chancellor opened his Budget earlier this year he slashed food subsidies by £165 million and undertook to make up the loss to the great consuming public in various ways, and this, as he said, was one of the ways.

Miss Horsbrugh: I quite agree with that point but if the right hon. Gentleman had listened to this debate as I have he would know that one after another hon. Gentlemen got up and said that this has been a pressing problem for years, that we should not have waited so long, and that the last review was in 1947. five years ago.
I was asked whether I would give an assurance this evening that we would review these things very much more quickly. It was pointed out that the years have gone on and that these people have been suffering a long time, and that there is no reason why we should not do this more quickly. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me that, having listened to such remarks, I have the right to say that if hon. Gentlemen opposite had realised the difficulties several years ago and had been so anxious for this increase to come about as quickly as possible, especially as according to them the sum involved is so small, then it is a great pity they did not do it last year or the year before, in which case the pensioners would not have had to wait until October this year.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me why on this occasion, as compared with the 1947 Act, we have a flat rate whereas then there was a percentage rate.

Mr. Callaghan: Before the right hon. Lady leaves the point, what is the reason for making the date 1st October when she has the opportunity of substituting an earlier date?

Miss Horsbrugh: I shall give my reasons for the date. All I am saying is that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley and his party could have substituted for next October the year before.

Mr. Callaghan: I fully followed, and indeed took that point, but, if I may say so, the right hon. Lady has still the responsibility to tell the House why she chooses a date on which this Bill will come into operation which is later by comparison with the earlier Bill. In that Bill the effective date for its operation was a date earlier than the date on which the Bill became an Act.

Miss Horsbrugh: I am coming to that point and I shall repeat what has been said already by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary when he introduced this Bill. I think the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) did not hear that statement but he can read it tomorrow in HANSARD.
The right hon. Member for Colne Valley asked why there was a flat rate basis in this Bill whereas there was a percentage basis in the 1947 Act. I think that he knows the 1947 scheme extremely well, and I am sure he will agree with me that that scheme was based partly on a flat rate and partly on a percentage. I think the present scheme, providing for a flat rate throughout, is simpler.
The right hon. Gentleman also asked whether the tapering off of the scales had been arranged on any definite basis. He asked whether we had merely said, "We will begin with £26 and next year we had better bring the sum down by one-fifth." I have here a list of the increases in these pensions. That list was looked at very carefully. Although, as this scheme has come out, it may seem a rather tidy scheme, it is merely based on rises that have taken place in pensions. I will not trouble the House with the list, but roughly speaking the tapering off is quite clearly connected with those rises.
The hon. Member for Itchen (Mr. Morley) again brought out the point that it was the duty of the Government to see that the pension had the same value throughout the pensioner's life. I have already dealt with that point and have made clear what we think. I have indicated that a scheme like that is not possible and that what we are doing is to try to give supplementary assistance to

those who are suffering the greatest hardship.
The hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove) did not like anything at all about this Bill. I have heard him speak like that more than once in this House, but I always look back with some interest to one occasion when I experienced quite a different feeling when the hon. Member addressed the House. I always remember that when I made my maiden speech in 1931 I was followed by the hon. Member who spoke very nicely about me at that time. But I did not altogether expect that he would ever do it again. He told us that he did not like the Bill at all, that he would like to vote against it and to have nothing to do with it. I think the point of view of the hon. Member for Itchin was a more sensible one. He, at any rate, said that the Bill was "sum-mat." I am sure that the pensioners would rather see us proceed with this scheme for a supplementation of the pension than take the view of the hon. Member for Aberavon.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Miss Ward) asked about the position of nurses. I ask her to realise how complex that question is. She knows that I have always taken the greatest interest in the nursing profession, and I can assure her that we will look into the matter very carefully before we come to the Committee stage of the Bill. The subject of nurses' pensions is almost more complex than some of the other cases, and that is saying a good deal. My hon. Friend also asked whether the Service pensions included the pensions of Service men's widows, and the answer is "Yes."

Miss Ward: That also includes the widows of officers?

Miss Horsbrugh: Yes. I was going to say "Service widows." The widows of Service men and officers are included. It is not only the men. I think that was the point my hon. Friend was making.

Miss Ward: No. It was not whether it was officers and men. My question concerned the widows of men in the Services who died in peace-time, as opposed to those who were killed because of enemy action, who are covered by the Ministry of Pensions. I referred to those who served in peace-time and died in pursuit of their Service, through


normal circumstances and not through enemy action.

Miss Horsbrugh: I can at any rate tell my hon. Friend that I will look into that before the Committee stage. Perhaps I had not quite understood the point she was making.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Horncastle (Commander Maitland) pointed out a great many anomalies in the pension scheme and gave us some examples of the teachers' superannuation scheme. I am well aware of some of them, and I should like to see these anomalies got rid of, but it is not on this occasion in this Bill that we can do that.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hove (Mr. Marlowe) asked whether the disability pension was taken into account. I would refer him to the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in introducing the Bill in 1944. It was quite clear that the disability pension would not be taken into account, but the fact that other sums were not taken into account brought the amount for everybody up to £52.
Several hon. Members posed what is always the difficult problem in anything to do with pensions on these scales, namely, whether thrift is being discouraged, and whether pensioners are discouraged from taking up work——

Mr. Marlowe: Reverting to the question of disability pensions, I do not think my right hon. Friend grasped the point. The point I have in mind is that the disability pension is not an additional disregard above the £52. Therefore, anybody who has the £52 disregard gets nothing extra by qualifying for a disability pension. The point I am trying to make is that there ought to be a distinction in those cases.

Miss Horsbrugh: What I was referring my hon. and learned Friend to in the speech of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor was that they began by disregarding the disability pension; then there were other sums which they thought ought to be disregarded, so they made the total disregard £52.

Mr. Marlowe: Including the disability pension.

Miss Horsbrugh: Including the disability pension.

Mr. Marlowe: That is no good.

Miss Horsbrugh: My hon. and learned Friend may say that it is no good, but the fact was that they put in the disability pensions but thought there ought to be some other disregard for other people, and so they put the whole thing together at the £52.
Let me return to the difficulty which crops up over and over again, namely, whether we are discouraging thrift and discouraging pensioners doing work because it would be of no advantage to them as they would lose part of their pension. We are always up against that problem when trying to deal with cases of real hardship. In this case the supplemental pension is for hardship. If someone is able to earn more his hardship is not as great as those who cannot earn more. We all know some of these elderly pensioners and what a difficult time they are going through.
I think that it is not possible to get an absolutely complete and balanced judgment and to put it into legislation. We want to see bow we can give extra help to those who, in a great many cases, cannot help themselves and who are in real hardship, and at the same time to feel that some opportunity is being given to those who can help themselves to do so, and to encourage them to go on working. I think that it is a psychological problem, and that it is in the interests of many of the older people to go on working; but the main thing is to see that there are supplementary pensions for those who are in real hardship and cannot in any way help themselves.
The hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Gage) asked me several questions on the subject of the police forces and the Royal Irish Constabulary. As to the police forces, the answer to his question is this. He was discussing the case of overseas police forces, and those members who had not a right of reversion to the home force. If there is one who has not a reversionary right and who has retired from the home police force with a pension before joining an overseas force, that home force pension will attract the new increase, provided that he has the necessary qualifications. Members of overseas police forces who are not getting a pension from a home police force authority but who are getting a pension from an overseas police force authority will also get the extra supplementary pension.
On the subject of the Royal Irish Constabulary, I will first deal with the widows. I fully appreciate, as I am sure every hon. Member appreciates, the difficulties which the hon. Member put before us. I should like to tell him that many of these difficulties are being looked into at the present time, apart from anything to do with this Bill. As to the actual point which he raised, the pension of the widow whose husband was in the Royal Irish Constabulary will attract the supplementary pension.
The point which the hon. Member was putting to the House was that some widows—and I will not go into the details which he explained so clearly—do not get a pension at all because of certain circumstances, and some widows do get a pension. We cannot deal in this Bill with those who are not getting a pension, although we are looking into some of the difficulties separately. The widow who is getting a pension will get the supplementary pension as well.

Mr. Ede: Even if she resides in the Irish Republic or in Northern Ireland?

Miss Horsbrugh: We had the strange case which the hon. Member for Belfast, South gave us of some who had gone into the Civic Guard in Eire and who get a pension, while some who had gone into the Ulster Constabulary did not get a pension. I have looked into this problem, and I have given the answers about the subject which concern the present Bill. I can only assure the hon. Gentleman that the other problems are being looked into.
As to the general point of view on the Bill as a whole, I began by saying that I know that, perhaps with one exception, all hon. Members are at any rate glad that this Bill has been introduced and that this small addition—and I am not saying that it is anything more than a small addition—is to be given to the pensioners who retire and who are in real hardship. I realise, as we all do, that we would like to do more; but the fact is that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in his Budget that he hoped for some plan of this sort, he put the limit at £20 and it has now been raised to £26. The scheme broadly follows the scheme of 1944 and 1947——

Mr. Callaghan: It does not follow it in one respect. The right hon. Lady is choosing a date, 1st October, which will be after the date when the Bill is passed. She has promised the House that she will tell us why.

Miss Horsbrugh: If the hon. Gentleman would not be so impatient, I might get to that point. I agree that the previous date was not 1st October and I agree that in both cases there was such a long wait that the date had to be in retrospect, but I still say that the Government took office late last autumn and have had to deal with a problem which has been known over the last two years to right hon. Gentlemen to be urgent. We are now dealing with the problem speedily and those who criticise us for not having brought in the scheme earlier should think of what they themselves could have done.

Mr. Edward Davies: Does not the right hon. Lady propose to say something about our request for consideration to be given to other categories, such as railwaymen?

Miss Horsbrugh: In introducing the Bill my hon. Friend said that such categories were outside its scope. Apart from making that statement, I doubt whether I should be in order in dealing with their difficulties. My hon. Friend explained that, if they are to be dealt with, these categories must be dealt with through the nationalised boards.

Mr. G. Thomas: Does the right hon. Lady's speech mean that she is not conceding anything as a result of our debate, either in relation to the target figure of £550 in one instance and £425 in the other, or in relation to the one-third stipulation? Is she sticking to all that?

Mr. Callaghan: And the date?

Miss Horsbrugh: The figures have been worked out very carefully with a balance which we think is the best balance. They have been worked out according to a good scheme, and if we were now to destroy the scheme we should destroy the whole benefit of being able to give this sum of money to supplement the pensions of those who are suffering real hardship.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Committed to a Standing Committee.

Orders of the Day — PENSIONS (INCREASE) [MONEY]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).—

[Queen's Recommendation signified.]

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to authorise certain increases in the case of pensions to which the Pensions (Increase) Acts, 1944 to 1947, apply, and of certain other pensions (hereinafter referred to as "the Act"), it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

A. Any sums required to defray expenditure under any provisions of the Act relating to pensions payable wholly or partly out of moneys provided by Parliament or out of the National Insurance Fund or the National Insurance (Existing Pensioners) Fund or charged upon the Consolidated Fund, being provisions authorising the payment, in respect of any such pension beginning (as defined by the Act) before such date as may be specified therein and payable to or for the benefit of a pensioner whose annual income (as ascertained in accordance with the Act) appears to the pension authority not to exceed five hundred and fifty pounds in the case of a pensioner who is married or has at least one dependant and four hundred and twenty-five pounds in the case of any other pensioner, of an increase, payable as from the first day of October, nineteen hundred and fifty-two, at such annual rate as may be specified in the Act(being a rate related to the time at which the pension begins) and in any case not exceeding one-third of the annual rate of the pension and not exceeding the amount necessary to increase the annual income of the pensioner (as ascertained as aforesaid) to five hundred and fifty pounds or four hundred and twenty-five pounds, as the case may be, any such increase being subject to the like restrictions as are imposed, in relation to increases under the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1944, by subsections (2) to (4) of section one of that Act;
B. Any increase in the sums payable out of moneys provided by Parliament under any enactment other than the Act which is attributable to provisions of the Act—

(1) authorising the payment of any such increase as is mentioned in paragraph A of this Resolution in respect of any such pension as is mentioned in that paragraph or in respect of any pension payable out of the Education (Scotland) Fund;
(2) authorising and requiring the payment, in respect of any other pension specified in the Act, being a pension beginning before such date as may be so specified, of an increase, payable as from the first day of October, nineteen hundred and fifty-two, at the like rate and subject to the like restrictions as are mentioned in the said paragraph A;

(3) enabling the Secretary of State to make provision, in the case of certain pensions payable under the enactments relating to firemen and police firemen, for increases not exceeding the highest increases authorised by the Act in the case of other pensions of the like amounts (including provision for the re-assessment of pensions granted at the higher of two scales), and enabling any order or regulations made for those purposes, or made within one year after the passing of the Act under the enactments relating to pensions of the police, special constables or staff of the Metropolitan Police, to be made with effect from the first day of October, nineteen hundred and fifty-two;
(4) applying for the purposes of the Act any provision of the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1944, and any enactment authorising increases or benefits corresponding with the increases authorised by the said Act of 1944 or by the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1947.—[Mr. Boyd-Carpenter.]

9.49 p.m.

Mr. Michael Stewart: I invite the Financial Secretary to consider whether it is necessary for the Resolution to be so rigidly drafted. We have listened to a long and very interesting debate on the Bill in general, and many suggestions have been made as to ways in which the Bill might be improved. But we now find that the Resolution precludes the Government and hon. Members who may serve on the Committee from pursuing a great many points which have been raised in our debate. The form of the Resolution tells us at the outset that before they had heard any arguments the Government had made up their mind that they would not concede some of the most important points which they knew must be raised in the debate.
The points I have particularly in mind, and which, if the Money Resolution goes through in its present form, we shall be precluded from discussing at any stage of the Bill are, first of all, the point of the date. I do not wish to labour that, because it was pretty well put by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) and it was referred to by the right hon. Lady in the speech which she has just made. Her contention was that the late Government could have dealt with this problem whenever they wished but, as has been pointed out, this is a problem which was created by the Budget of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was quite impossible for the late Government to deal with a problem created by the Chancellor in the Government which succeeded them.
But, more important than the date, is the fact that it will be impossible to consider either the question of the means test or the rule that the increase shall not exceed one-third of the pension if the Resolution goes through in this form. The combination of these two is particularly significant, because between them they make a kind of Morton's Fork. On the one hand, we say that anybody who has a fairly large income shall be precluded from getting as much benefit from this Bill as he might because he has that fairly large income; and, on the other hand, we say that anyone who has an exceptionally small pension shall be precluded by the one-third rule from getting as much benefit as he might because he has an exceptionally small pension.
I do not wish to argue the merits or demerits of having those two provisions in the Bill, but it seems to me that we ought not at this stage to make it impossible for the desirability or undesirability of these provisions to be discussed at any future stage of our deliberations on this Bill. That is why I am suggesting that the Financial Secretary should reconsider the wording of this Resolution. It is not only that the principle of the means test is nailed down in the Bill by the Money Resolution, but the exact figures of the total income are also prescribed in this Resolution.
Further, the figures not only of the pensioner without dependants but the pensioner with dependants are prescribed, and the relation between the amount of benefit to be given to one kind of pensioner and another is also something which it will be impossible to discuss at any later stage of the Bill should the Money Resolution in its present form be approved.
Similarly, by putting the one-third rule in the Money Resolution not only are we prevented at any future stage from discussing whether it is desirable to have a limit of that kind passed, but also it will not even be possible to discuss whether the proportion ought to be something more than one-third. I seriously suggest to the Financial Secretary that the Money Resolution as drawn at the present moment neglects the very serious and well-informed arguments which were put before the House this

afternoon, and quite unduly restricts future discussions on this Measure.
It would serve the purpose which this House and this Committee has to serve, namely, careful and thoughtful discussion of a Bill with the hope of amending it, if the hon. Gentleman at this stage would agree to set aside the Money Resolution in its present form and at some convenient date present one that is drafted somewhat less rigidly and which will make it possible to take account of the arguments which have been advanced, enabling us to get on with our job, which ought to be amending the Bill.

Mr. Houghton: This is where the battle on the Bill begins.

Mr. Ellis Smith: This is the ultimatum.

Mr. Houghton: The Financial Secretary is trying to put the whole House in a strait jacket on this Bill. If the Financial Resolution remains as drafted, a good deal of what has been said in a serious and thoughtful debate will have been a waste of time. I hope that the Financial Secretary will have something accommodating to say on the Resolution. As I read it, the Table in the Second Schedule of the Bill is open to amendment in Committee, but the ceiling and the means test are not. The effective date of the Bill is not open to amendment in Committee, nor is the one-third rule, though, as I read it, the amount of the pension increase is.
All we are left with to discuss effectively in Committee is the amount of the pension and the Table in the Second Schedule. If that is a correct interpretation of the position, it is an absolute insult to us, after the long and throughtful debate we have had, to ask us to go into Committee to discuss the Bill. I hope that my hon. Friends on this side will realise the seriousness of the restrictions imposed by the Resolution and will act accordingly.
However tolerant we have been with the Financial Secretary in the discussion on the Second Reading of the Bill—we have been extremely kind to him and have made our contributions in a friendly and constructive way—if we are to be treated in this way, after having given the Bill a Second Reading, it is time for us to register a very emphatic protest. I hope that hon. Gentlemen


opposite who have made contributions on points which are excluded from the Financial Resolution will join us in making that protest.
What earthly use has it been for them to sit the whole afternoon and evening to make suggestions to their hon. and right hon. Friends on the Front Bench only to find themselves bound and gagged by this Resolution? I am greatly indignant about this matter and about the principle of the thing. If the House is asked to consider a Bill containing a variety of complex clauses and important proposals, the voice of the House is entitled to be heard when we come to deal with the detail of the Bill in Committee. I hope that the Financial Secretary will make a reply which will enable us to finish up on this Bill in a spirit of co-operation and good will.

Mr. Cove: I support the protest. I am not quite sure that what my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) has said in relation to this Resolution is not too generous. This is a very tightly drawn Financial Resolution, and if it goes through as it is now it will make a farce of the Committee proceedings.
I should have thought the wise thing for the Government to do would be to respond to what is undoubtedly the feeling on both sides of the Committee. I will not go through the list of Members in detail, but undoubtedly views have been expressed on many matters with which the Committee should have a chance of dealing, for instance, the application of the date in October. If the present Financial Resolution is carried, hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite should realise clearly that the House cannot do anything of any value to improve the Bill; there is no shadow of doubt about that.
One of my objections to the Bill is that its provisions have been settled outside the confines of the House of Commons; the principles have been discussed and agreed to by bodies outside this House. We have little or no Parliamentary control, and I ask hon. Members opposite to join with us——

Mr. Ellis Smith: To what parties is my hon. Friend referring?

Mr. Cove: My hon. Friend had better look it up; I do not want to go into

detail at this time of the night. I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite to join with us in seeing that the Committee stage will be a real one, in which we can deal with the points made by both sides of the House. If not, I hope my hon. Friends on this side of the Committee will vote against this Financial Resolution.

10.0 p.m.

Mr. G. Thomas: The Financial Secretary has not been unreasonable in his earlier statement to the House, and I am sure he will appreciate that hon. Members on both sides have spent their time today in making constructive suggestions for the improvement of this Bill. To say the least, it is disrespectful to all hon. Members who thought that their contributions to the debate might be taken notice of by the Treasury during the Committee stage.
The fact that we shall not be able in Committee to seek any alteration to the one-third stipulation, which hits the lower pensioner severely, to my mind makes a mockery of the Committee stage. The fact that we are unable to deal with the means test principle means that one of the main items to which we object will be put outside our range.
I am quite sure that it would not be the wish of the Government to steamroller this Measure through without the Commons being given the opportunity to be the watch dogs of the public purse in matters of this kind. I earnestly hope that the Financial Secretary will not stand at the Box and merely indicate that he is unable in any way to meet the wishes of the Committee.
Hon. Members opposite who have spoken in scathing terms about some of the things in this Bill knew that there would be no Division. It was announced at the beginning from this side of the House that we would not take the Question to the Division Lobby. It was easy for hon. Gentlemen opposite to be severe in their condemnation, knowing they would not have to follow their convictions to the Division Lobby. The test of their sincerity is the attitude they will now adopt when the things to which they object are being put beyond our reach of correction, and I earnestly hope that we shall find from that side of the Committee an enthusiasm equal to this side of the House in objecting to the Financial Resolution as it is framed.

Mr. Tom Brown: I think it is generally understood that it is rare for a Financial Resolution connected with a Bill to be opposed in this House unless there is a profound feeling that it does not go far enough to deal with the anomalies and injustices contained in the Bill in question.
Since the debate started, practically every speaker, with one exception, has called attention to the unfairness of certain sections of the Bill. If our debate this afternoon and this evening is to prove worth while, we should have an opportunity of putting down Amendments to remove some of the injustices to which the House has had its attention drawn. If the Financial Resolution goes through in its present form, it will be impossible for any person, however generous or however mean, to put down Amendments to remove some of the things which the Bill contains.
We on this side are anxious to have a discussion upon the subject of the means test, which is creating a great deal of heartburning throughout the country for those who have been on pensions for a considerable time. We appeal to the Financial Secretary to reconsider the Financial Resolution—it would not hold up the Bill for more than a few days—and to widen it as far as the purse will allow, so that when we come to put down Amendments to certain parts of the Bill we shall not be met with the argument that they are outside the financial terms of the Bill. We have had too much of that in the past.
We feel very indignant on this side that after spending all the debate on this important Measure, we now find that the Financial Resolution does not give an opportunity to put down Amendments which would improve the Bill and, consequently, improve the economic position of those who would benefit under it. I strongly support those who have made their protest against the Financial Resolution as it now stands.

Mr. Callaghan: I have no desire to stand between the Financial Secretary and the Committee, because we hope to hear some good news from him. None of us on this side has any desire to prolong the debate, because there has been an atmosphere of reasonableness during the whole day.
The Financial Secretary will have been impressed by the feeling that has been displayed on this side of the Committee about the way in which the Money Resolution has been drawn. I fully understand the indignation of my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton). He has given a lifetime of service in this cause, and he feels greatly indignant at the manner in which the Resolution has been drawn.
I hope I shall not be ruled completely out of court in saying this, but I also have some sympathy with the Treasury. They clearly want to limit to some extent their financial liability. They want to go into Committee knowing that they will not be over-committed on what is likely to come out of the Committee stage. Clearly, the House and the Committee must have a measure of responsibility and must take a sensible point of view about what is being done in this matter.
I say to the Financial Secretary and to his supporters that it is the job of the Committee to hold a balance in this matter. Our complaint on this side is that we do not think the balance has been fairly struck. We think that the Financial Secretary has tied it up—perhaps not with intent, but certainly as it has appeared in front of the Committee—in an extremely tight way, and I should hope that some of the hon. Gentlemen who spoke from the other side earlier will support us in this matter.
There is one aspect concerning the operative date, which I feel should be much earlier. I do not intend to argue that again now, because it has been argued before. On the question of the date from which the Bill should operate, there is not a great deal of liability. The Treasury are not giving too much away if they leave that matter to be discussed in Committee.
By drawing the Financial Resolution so tightly, the Financial Secretary has vitiated a great deal of the usefulness of the Committee stage, and I do not want us to embark upon the Committee stage in an atmosphere in which it is felt by certain Members that the Government, by drawing the Resolution very tightly, prevent adequate discussion of strongly felt grievances which could be decently and properly aired in Committee.
The Leader of the House is here, the matter has been circulated among the Whips, and I have no doubt that the Government could beat us if it came to a Division. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Perhaps they are not so sure, but I am assuming that that is what would happen, although I am sure that a number of the Government's supporters would not vote very wholeheartedly with them.
I appeal to the Financial Secretary We do not want to end on a Division tonight. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] That would finally kill it if the Government won, and I give the best advice I can to hon. Members on my side of the Committee. If the Government were to put on the Whips and their supporters who have supported the general criticism—and there has been concrete criticism—were forced to go into the Lobby, any hope of amending the Bill in the way in which we want to amend it, because the Financial Resolution has been drawn so tightly, would be killed. My objective, and I take it, the objective of most hon. Members, is to try to get the best Bill we can for the pensioners. That seems to be the best way to approach this matter. I do not want this debate to end in a Division in which two sides will be shepherded into two Lobbies each voting a particular way.
What I am doing, therefore, is making an appeal to the Leader of the House and to the Financial Secretary. As these points are really tightly drawn, I appeal to the Financial Secretary to consider withdrawing the Money Resolution for the moment, to have another look at it and to see whether he can redraft it so that the liability of the Treasury is properly covered—clearly we must take that into account in Committee—but, having covered their liability, that we should also be able in Committee to exercise a useful function by discussing the matters as we want to discuss them.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will give a reasonable answer and consent to look at the Resolution again before the Question is put and to see whether he can amend it in some way.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I do not quarrel with what the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) has said as to the principle to be followed on these Money Resolutions, that one must hold

a fair balance between the responsibility of the Government for the recommendation of expenditure and the freedom of the Committee on Committee stage to have a proper, adequate and satisfying debate. Indeed, the drafting of these Money Resolutions ought properly to strike a fair balance between those two, on the face of them, somewhat conflicting considerations——

Mr. Ellis Smith: This Resolution does not do that.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Where I part company from the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East, and from the hon. Member for Fulham, East (Mr. M. Stewart), is when they say that this is a tightly drawn Money Resolution. With great respect, it is nothing of the sort. To begin with, as I ventured to indicate during the speech of the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall), it is modelled on the Resolution which he moved on the 1947 Bill. It was deliberately drawn so as to leave a very wide field for discussion.
Let me remind the Committee of what is left wholly open. The actual amount of the increases, each and all of them, is fully open. On the precedent of many Bills they might well have been fully covered, but on this occasion they have been left open. The amount of income to be disregarded in computing the income for the purposes of entitlement to pension is left open. In that way, in practice, the issue of the ceilings on income at which entitlement to pension ceases is left open. As I explained on Second Reading, the income limits and disregards are the converse and obverse of the same thing.
Finally, what was described earlier as the tapering arrangements are all left open. A Money Resolution which leaves those things open may well be liable to criticism, but that criticism would be on the grounds that it has not, perhaps, fully discharged the responsibility of the Government in recommending expenditure to the House with some degree of precision.
Let me take two matters to which reference has been made, which the Resolution covers. In the first place, there is the date of the coming into effect of the Bill. I cannot go into the argument, Sir Charles, as to the merits of the date chosen without incurring your


displeasure. But, in point of fact, of course, the hon. Gentleman has answered the question. He has said with some force that this matter arises out of my right hon. Friend's Budget speech and out of the adjustments made in it. This Bill is therefore on his own showing a Bill, the whole purpose of which and the recommendations of which are to deal, so far as this section of the community is concerned, with the situation following from that.

10.15 p.m.

Mr. M. Stewart: It is not on my showing, it is originally on the hon. Member's showing. He does confirm that this Bill is to deal with the position created by the Chancellor's Budget? I would like that confirmed, because the right hon. Lady took a quite different view.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to continue, I will make the position clear. I have had experience now extending over nearly 20 years of his skill as a debater, and he knows that I was only half-way through the argument. It was not he but his right hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) who said this. If that view is right, this fits in with other social changes which followed from the Budget, and in particular with the adjustment to the old-age pensions which take effect on 29th September, two days from the date in question. So, on his own right hon. Friend's showing, it is one of the purposes of the Bill to fit in with those arrangements.
I would not go as far as my right hon. Friend. I would say it has not been only the need to make adjustments following on the Budget, but also on the fact, as many of my hon. Friends have said, that the party opposite did not see fit to take any steps in this matter since 1947. But, in so far as there is force in the contention of the right hon. Member for Colne Valley that this is a sequel to the Budget, it is surely logical to arrange it so that it comes into force at substantially the same time as the comparable provisions made in respect of National Insurance.
Let me come to the point which roused so much indignation in the normally equable temperament of the hon. Member for Fulham, East (Mr. M. Stewart). In the Resolution, he said, there appeared

the principle of the income limit. That, I am bound to remind him, did appear in the Resolution of 1947. And I am bound to remind the Committee that when the right hon. Member for Colne Valley moved the Resolution on 6th December, 1946, not a single hon. Member on that or any side of the Committee raised their voices in protest.

Mr. Ellis Smith: That is six years ago.

Mr. Houghton: They would have done, had I been here.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I will willingly agree that the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) is an exception to all rules, but, in point of fact, it was the hon. Member for Fulham, East, who was I think then a member of the Administration, who became so indignant on this point.

Mr. M. Stewart: The hon. Member compares what is happening now with what happened then, but he does omit the point that that was so because in those days there was a very flaccid and idle Opposition. The hon. Member cannot expect things that went uncriticised then to go uncriticised now. And will he not accept this fact, that while we on this side of the House take a good view of the record of the late Government, none of my right hon. and hon. Friends or myself who were members of it have ever suggested it was infallible?
We cannot understand the continued argument advanced from the Front Bench opposite that because something was done by the late Government that puts it immediately beyond question or argument. I should be happy to believe that that was so, but our natural modesty and common sense precludes us from the doctrine of the infallibility of the late Government, to which the Front Bench opposite are so addicted. Will the hon. Gentleman believe that he is now responsible, and if he is satisfied that it is a right provision he ought to be able to justify it on its own merits and with his own arguments?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Two most interesting points arise from that brief intervention. First, the hon. Member for Fulham, East apparently took the view that during the lifetime of the late Government sole responsibility for looking after the welfare of public servants in


this country fell on the Opposition. That indeed explains a great deal.
Secondly, he seems to be under the illusion that I am arguing for the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall). I am not, but I commend to the hon. Member for Fulham, East, who was his colleague in the late Administration, that the fact that the right hon. Member for Colne Valley did something is not conclusive evidence that it was nonsense. It may amount to a prima facie case. I am prepared to concede that, but I beg the hon. Member for Fulham, East to believe that on occasion the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley may have been right.
We have the fact that, included in the Money Resolution which the right hon. Member for Colne Valley, without a dissentient voice from either side of the Committee, put through on 6th December, 1946, there was not only the limitation upon incomes but the two specific points which upset the hon. Member for Fulham, East. These were the actual amounts of money and the differentiation between the pensioner with dependants and the pensioner without dependants. When one realises that all that was contained in the Money Resolution, which was a matter of routine put forward in connection with the 1947 Act, I suggest that there has been some exaggeration in the suggestions that this Resolution, modelled upon that, will really have an unduly restrictive effect upon the deliberations of the Committee.

Mr. Callaghan: May I put it to the hon. Gentleman that during the Second Reading debate in 1947 there was no criticism of these factors to the marked degree that we have had today. They were never a source of contention, not between the two sides of the House but between everybody in the House and the Government at that time. In this Bill and on this Money Resolution these are factors of contention on which the Government may have a perfectly good case but which we suggest we should have an opportunity of arguing. If there is no disagreement, there is no point in arguing about it. That was roughly the position in 1947. On this occasion it is different.
I submit in all sincerity that the hon. Gentleman should seriously consider this matter. He should take this Money Resolution back. He should look at it again and see if he cannot meet the Committee on one or two of these points.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The hon. Gentleman is a little ingenuous. When his right hon. Friend put down the Money Resolution in the terms I have quoted, he put it down before the debate took place. Clearly he did not know what would be said in the debate. No doubt I should be out of order if I went in detail into the debate which took place on 6th December, 1946. It was a debate which occupied a considerable part of HANSARD. The interventions of the hon. Gentleman no doubt helped to account for that. A Resolution in the same terms as this Resolution was put down and no complaint was made. Indeed, it is right that there should have been no complaint.
The point I would make is that, whereas we have left open many issues of great importance for the Committee stage, nevertheless in practice, and on the basis of long precedent, there rests upon the Government the responsibility of recommending expenditure to Parliament and of recommending the general direction in which such expenditure should be made. That is all that this Resolution does. It serves to embody the principle, which the House of Commons has already accepted by giving a Second Reading to the Bill, that this is a Measure for the relief of hardship. This is a Measure for relief to those with small incomes in the group of ex-Civil Servants and the other people who are benefited by this Bill.
The House has accepted that principle by giving the Bill a Second Reading. All that the Money Resolution does is to put the responsibility on the Government, as it must do, if the matter is to go any further at all behind that general proposition and that general aspect of the matter. I hope I have reassured the Committee that there is nothing in this Resolution which will prevent the valuable and effective debate on the Committee stage to which the Government look forward.

Mr. Ellis Smith: It will be for the Chair to say what is in order and what is out of order when we come to the Committee stage, but may I ask the hon. Gentleman a question before we part with this Money Resolution? In the opinion of the Financial Secretary, will the Committee be in order in acting in the following way? During the past six years, it has been shown that the police, in particular, have certain grievances with regard to pensions, and anomalies have also been proved. Will it be in order in Committee to move Amendments to rectify the legitimate grievances of the police and to deal with proved anomalies?
The same thing applies to a lesser extent to firemen, and, in view of the valuable war services of these two sections of our community, and of the assurance given by the Financial Secretary, will he go further and say that, in his opinion, it will be in order, subject to the Ruling of the Chair, to allow Amendments to be moved in Committee to deal with the matters that I have raised?

10.27 p.m.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: We are very disappointed on this side of the Committee at what the Financial Secretary——

Mr. E. Partridge: You would be.

Mr. Hall: I will give reasons, if I may, why we are disappointed. Indeed, there is no reason why we should not be. It would surprise me very much if we were not, in the light of the direction taken by the debate on Second Reading. I do not think the hon. Gentleman who interrupted was there, but no speech on either side was concluded without considerable criticism of this Bill.
I was saying, when interrupted, that we are very disappointed on this side of the Committee by the speech made by the Financial Secretary. He said that this Money Resolution is practically the same—he used the words "modelled on"—as the Financial Resolution which I moved when a similar Bill was passed through the House in 1946. I think he is not strictly accurate in making that assertion, because I have looked at this Financial Resolution, and, although I have not got the Resolution which I moved on the earlier occasion by me,

I believe I am correct in saying that this Financial Resolution is really much more tightly drawn than was the one which I had the honour to move in December, 1946.
I want to ask the hon. Gentleman what there is of this Bill of a substantial kind that we really can discuss when we reach the Committee stage, in view of the fact that the Financial Resolution has been so tightly drawn. I may have misunderstood the hon. Gentleman, but he did say that there was a wide field open for discussion, and he went on to describe what was in this wide field thus open. So far as my recollection goes, he said that the whole scale of pensions would be open for discussion.
Again, if I may correct him, with all due deference, because he is usually fairly accurate in his statements, that is not strictly true. One of the things contained in this Resolution about which we complain is that all pensions are to be subject to the one-third rule, and, therefore, it is not true to say that the whole wide field is open for discussion so long as that provision still retains in the Money Resolution. In spite of the hon. Gentleman's assertion that we could discuss cases of great hardships when we came to the Committee stage, its retention means that these will be the very cases we shall be able to do nothing about, because it is the small pensions which are going to be hit by the one-third rule.
10.30 p.m.
A man or a woman must have a pension of at least £78 a year before he or she is able to get the full £26 maximum laid down in the Second Schedule. If the pension is below that figure—and I understand there are thousands of people, particularly Post Office workers, whose pensions do not amount to 30s. a week—the person concerned will not qualify. It was obvious from all that was said this afternoon from both sides, that the House was unanimous in the view that it was the people on the very small pensions whom, whoever was or was not helped, we wanted to assist.
I have here Erskine May, a book not unknown to hon. Members, at page 681 of which this question of Financial Resolutions is discussed. Apparently, on 26th April, 1937, a Select Committee was


appointed to consider this and ancillary matters. Erskine May says:
The principal recommendation of the committee, which reported on 13th July, 1937, was that the terms of a financial resolution should be drafted more widely than the terms of the related provisions of a bill, and it proposed that a declaratory resolution should be passed by the House indicating (in terms suggested by the committee) how much wider they should be drawn. In a statement in the House on 9th November, 1937, the Prime Minister announced that, while the Government was unable to support the proposed declaratory resolution, instructions were to be given to the departments and the Parliamentary Counsel's Office that financial resolutions in respect of bills should be"—
and these words are in quotes—
'so framed as not to restrict the scope within which the committees on the bills may consider amendments further than is necessary to enable the Government to discharge their responsibilities in regard to public expenditure, and to leave to the committee the utmost freedom for discussion and amendment of details which is compatible with the discharge of those responsibilities.'
I think hon. Members in all quarters of the Committee, having had their memories refreshed by that quotation, must, if they are fair, agree with us on this side that something should be done to have this Financial Resolution altered in order that when we reach the Committee stage our debate may not only have some reality and dignity, but that hon. Members in all quarters who, as I have said, find a good deal to criticise in this Bill, may have an opportunity if necessary—if a majority so decide—to change some of its provisions.
I see that the Leader of the House is on the Government Front Bench, and I am wondering whether it is worth while appealing to his very kind and generous heart. Many of us have been in the House for a good number of years with the right hon. Gentleman, and we all know that when the case is an unanswerable one he is more than willing to meet us half way. I am sure that, in the light of what is clearly stated in Erskine May, namely, that departments have actually been instructed to draw Financial Resolutions much less tightly than this one certainly has been drawn, he will be willing to look at this again. I do appeal to him and to the Financial Secretary to take back this Resolution. There surely is not all this hurry tonight. Let us have it again, perhaps next week, or as soon as may be, in a more elestic form so that

when we come to the Committee stage we can do our work with realism.
Finally, may I—and I am reminded of this by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan)—appeal to the Financial Secretary, at any rate, to take out the commencing date set down if he will not, though I hope he will, budge on the one-third rule inserted in the Resolution? There really is nothing in the argument that he put forward with such plausibility. We had the same difficulties with the Treasury when the 1944 Bill was going through, and when the 1947 Bill was also being considered. It is quite unrealistic for the right hon. Lady the Minister of Education to suggest that in 1947 we came along very late with that Bill, whereas here they have legislated in advance.
It is obvious that this Bill—poor though it is—would never have been introduced had it not been for the changes made by the Finance Bill by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The last Bill was in 1947, when the cost of living index was being kept fairly stable. It is only in recent years and months that it has begun to gallop up. Everyone in every quarter of the Committee knows—and we are sorry on this side about it, for no one wants the cost of living to mount, even to gain a political advantage—that unfortunately it is going to go even higher due to the Chancellor having decided in his wisdom, or lack of it, to slash the food subsidies. That having been done, it was necessary, as many do not pay Income Tax and cannot have the difference made up to them in that way, that some other form of help should be given. That, frankly, and I am sure that the Financial Secretary does not deny it, is the reason for this Bill.
If, having brought in the Bill as a result of its own policy, the Government now comes along and says, poor and niggardly though the scales laid down in this Bill are, none of them shall be altered when we reach the Committee stage, then it seems to me that we have every reason to press them, and press them hard, to take back this Resolution. I hope that the Committee will insist on not being put into a strait jacket in this way. That would be farcical. It would be bad for the House, for the morale of hon. Members, and bad as an example to the public.

Mr. Houghton: I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that, with the exception of the hon. and learned Member for Hove (Mr. Marlowe), the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Miss Ward) and the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Vaughan-Morgan), all hon. Members on the other side of the Committee who spoke on Second Reading have silently quitted the Chamber. I sincerely hope that that does not mean that after making their speeches on Second Reading, drawing attention to some of the defects of the Bill, they have now lost interest and are leaving it to us on this side of the Committee to make our appeal to the Financial Secretary to widen the Money Resolution.
It is perfectly true that, as the Financial Secretary said, the Money Resolution is drawn before the Second Reading debate and so the draftsmen have no means of knowing what will be the material points of criticism of the Bill. Although reasonable anticipation of the points of criticism can always be made, I am sure the Financial Secretary must have been impressed by the comprehensive nature of the criticism of this Bill. Some matters which could be remedied at the Committee stage were the Money Resolution not drawn as it is would be less costly to the Exchequer than some of the things that are left open in the Money Resolution.
In any case, what is this factor of total cost in relation to the total cost of the public services? I am the last person in this Committee to write down money values or to describe money as meaningless symbols, but the amount of money involved in this Bill is a mere bagatelle compared with the total cost of the public services.
Attention was drawn during the Second Reading debate to the fact that in the Civil Service, at all events, the total cost of both Pensions (Increase) Acts up to date is only just over £l—million as compared with the total, non-effective for the Civil Service, of something like £15 million. So the amount of money involved here does not justify drawing this Resolution as tightly as it has been drawn.
The greatest expense that it would be possible to incur at the Committee stage would be an increase in the amount

of the supplementation proposed in the Bill. Other matters which are ruled out, though less expensive, do impress hon. Members as being points of some substance which would be worthy of some discussion and examination in Committee. But if our appeals to the Financial Secretary are going to fall upon deaf ears I think it is a great pity that he did not introduce a note of warning, when he moved the Second Reading of the Bill, that any hon. Members on either side of the House who had anything to say on matters which would be excluded from the Committee discussion by the Money Resolution would be wasting their breath and wasting the time of the House and their own time in being in the House. We then should have known what to do.
At least some hon. Members need never have made their speeches and they would have appeared less ridiculous in the eyes of the Committee than they now do, having beaten the air in the thoughtful speeches they made on Second Reading. I sincerely hope that some hon. Member on the opposite side of the Committee will express a point of view on this Money Resolution, otherwise it will look as if on the benches opposite the whole thing is being allowed to go by default, leaving my right hon. Friends and my hon. Friends to appear in the light of captious critics expressing vexatious sentiments and destroying the good will on Second Reading and altogether appearing to be unreasonable people.
10.45 p.m.
All we are trying to do—[Interruption.] If that is the attitude of hon. Members opposite, what purpose was served by their hon. Friends who spoke critically of this Bill on Second Reading? Are they repudiating them? Are hon. Gentlemen now in the Chamber saying that they could not care less, or that they have no conception of what all the speeches were about from their side of the House? The sentiment expressed in that interruption is an insult to their own hon. Friends who gave their time and thought to this Bill.
Notwithstanding the inflexible attitude—I was going to say stubborn, but I do not want to use any unkind word—of hon. Gentlemen opposite, we on this side must go on record as protesting strongly against the attempt of Her Majesty's Government to render ineffective and use-


less, to a large extent, the debates which would otherwise take place in Committee.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Are we not going to get a reply from the Leader of the House? Surely he is not going to treat with contempt the considered views expressed on this side in no feeling of antagonism. From a House of Commons point of view he should reply, because every hon. Member should have an interest in how the Financial Resolutions are drawn. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen may be on that side tonight, but it will not be long before they are on this side, and they would object most strongly to this kind of treatment on a Financial Resolution.
I hope that the Leader of the House will not sit silent but will give us the benefit of his very great knowledge in these matters. I hope he will intimate—he has the power—that the Government really are going to take back this Resolution, so that we may have a proper Committee stage on this Bill.

Mr. T. Brown: Several questions have been addressed to the Financial Secretary regarding the police, firemen, and others who have done yeoman service in years gone by. What is going to be our position if we put down Amendments on Committee stage to improve the contents of this Bill? Will the Financial Secretary give an answer? An answer is of paramount importance.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I willingly respond to the hon. Member. It is not for me or any hon. Member but for the Chair to say what will be in order. I can help the hon. Member only by saying that so far as we are concerned any Amendments—of course, the hon. Member has not specified precisely what Amendments he has in mind, and obviously no opinion would be of the slightest value without that information—within the general purpose of the Bill, which is to provide certain increases for existing pensions, would, so far as I can see, be in order. I cannot go beyond that without interfering with the prerogatives of the Chair. So far as I can help him, if the hon. Gentleman has in mind Amendments dealing with increases to existing pensions, in one or other of these categories of public service, they would seem to come within the ambit of the Bill.

Mr. Ellis Smith: There are members of the staff not very far away from where

we meet who have done great service and who are now on the eve of retirement. It has been proved there are certain anomalies. On the Committee stage, shall we have the right to try and remedy them?

Mr. Ede: I was hoping that the Leader of the House would have responded to the appeal just made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall), because he will recollect the long discussions and the strained feelings which led to the intervention of the late Mr. Chamberlain, which has been quoted by my right hon. Friend. On this particular occasion, we have a Financial Resolution which considerably invades the ground of the Ruling then given, and although no Resolution was passed by the House, I thought we had something better than a formal Resolution—a general understanding between both sides of the House.
During today I have heard two speeches which impressed me very much from the other side; that of the hon. and learned Member for Hove (Mr. Marlowe), and that of the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Vaughan-Morgan). The former put forward certain criticisms of the Bill, in a good spirit, and I think that a high percentage of the electors of Hove must have considerably impressed him with the importance of seeing that certain alterations were made in it. I have no doubt that he came here to say that this Financial Resolution is wide enough for him to raise each and all of those issues put to him in Hove, and that he is only waiting for a few more speeches to be made in order that he may have the opportunity to intervene to inquire if he may put down an Amendment to meet each of the cases he has put forward.

Mr. Marlowe: The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly right in what he says, but the answer which the Financial Secretary has given already satisfies us on that point.

Mr. Ede: Then I must say that he is far more easily satisfied than when he sat on this side; and I cannot but help thinking that he is going to have a pretty rough time in Hove Town Hall when, in a few months' time, if this Financial Resolution is not amended, he has to say, "I am sorry, but what you asked me to do was out of order." If this Financial Resolution goes through, several of the


things he mentioned will not be able to be discussed on the Committee stage; and that is the only effective stage for this purpose.
I do appeal, in view of what has been said about Mr. Chamberlain's remarks, when a similar situation had been reached, through a series of Resolutions tightly drawn, to see if we could not have this Resolution so framed as to make all the matters mentioned capable of discussion. I do ask the Government not to rely on the argument that the Resolution moved by my right hon. Friend in 1946 was about the same as this. I understood that we were going to see better things from the present Government, and I still live in hope. This is an opportunity for the Government to live up to those hopes which we formed when it took over its tasks.

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Harry Crookshank): Might I just say that I remember the discussions which led to the arrangements announced by Mr. Chamberlain in 1937? I have not heard all of the debate today, but I heard the Financial Secretary's remarks just now on this Financial Resolution. He pointed out that it was dealing with a somewhat similar Bill as the 1947 Act, and that it was largely based on the Resolution of December, 1946.
For my part, he persuaded me that the action we are taking is correct. Therefore, I am afraid I cannot recommend that this particular Resolution should be withdrawn. But, as I have the opportunity of being on my feet, it may be for your convenience, Sir Charles, to know that, at the request of the Opposition, tomorrow's business has been altered and that, in place of the debate on the cost of living, there will be a debate on Korea in Committee of Supply. Perhaps that answer will satisfy the right hon. Gentleman.

Resolution to be reported Tomorrow.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: May I ask whether this Bill is going to be taken on the floor of the House, or upstairs?

The Chairman: There is no Motion moved, so the Bill will be going upstairs.

Orders of the Day — AGRICULTURE (PLOUGHING GRANTS) BILL

Order for consideration, as amended, read.
Bill re-committed to a Committee of the whole House in respect of the Amendments to Clause 1, page 1, line 9; Clause 1, page 2, line 11; Clause 1, page 2, line 14; and Clause 3, page 3, line 6, standing on the Order Paper in the name of Sir Thomas Dugdale.—[Sir T. Dugdale.]

Bill immediately considered in Committee.

[Mr. GEORGE THOMAS in the Chair]

Clause 1.—(PAYMENT OF PLOUGHING GRANTS IN ACCORDANCE WITH SCHEMES.)

10.58 p.m.

The Minister of Agriculture (Sir Thomas Dugdale): I beg to move, in page 1, line 9, to leave out "if the scheme so provides."
This and the following two Amendments are made to fulfil an undertaking I gave to the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) and other hon. Members during the Committee stage. The effect of the Amendments is to accept the principle of a similar group of Amendments tabled by the right hon. Member and other hon. Members. The effect in the Bill will be that in every scheme payment of a grant is conditional upon the carrying out of further operations like sowing, in addition to ploughing.

Mr. George Brown: I think it would be right if I began by thanking the Minister for having carried out so completely the undertaking he gave us during the Committee stage after the Parliamentary Secretary had told us at some considerable length why it was not a very good thing to do. On the other hand, I am not sure that the Minister should not have begun by thanking us. The courtesy and the custom is that we do the thanking, but the Bill now becomes a very much better thing in the end than the rather poor thing it was when he started, with it—although it would not be but for us. We shall not be using public money merely to get land ploughed up unless people are persuaded thereby to do something useful to the land, and unless the Minister has power to examine the cropping and way in which these conditions are carried out. We are glad the


Amendment has been put down, and we hope the Minister will take rather more care in future Bills to see that they are in the right form.

11.0 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I hope I may join in the congratulations which we wish to extend to the Minister, because the debate on this Bill was an exceedingly pleasant one. I desire only to make one or two observations.
That debate was memorable for the fact that in the course of it two things became apparent, both of them exceedingly unexpected. First, both the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary appeared to have some modest knowledge of their subject—an occasion unparalled in the history of the House over the last few months. The second was that the Minister treated the House with courtesy, and appeared to realise that he was addressing the House of Commons, and sought a spirit of co-operation and direction for a great industry.
I would only express the hope that if the Minister could tear himself away from his important duties for a few moments he might give lessons in deportment to some of his colleagues. Our debates would then be not only not so long, and indeed, if everyone behaved like the Minister we should be moving now to the Summer Adjournment.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 2, line 11, leave out from beginning, to "in," in line 12, and insert "A grant under this Act."

In line 14, leave out "the grant."—[Sir T. Dugdale.]

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3.—(SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS AS TO SCHEMES.)

Sir T. Dugdale: I beg to move, in page 3, line 6, at the end, to insert:
and
(b) no such variation or revocation of a scheme shall affect the operation of the scheme in relation to any land which has been ploughed up before the variation or revocation comes into operation.
This Amendment is a result of our earlier debates. The effect of it is that if a scheme is varied or revoked at any time a grant will be payable in accordance

with the original scheme on any eligible land ploughed up before any change or revocation of the scheme.
The right hon. Member for Belper will notice that the words are slightly different from the words in the Amendment which he introduced, but I hope he will be satisfied that the intention behind the original Amendment has been completely followed in this Amendment.

Mr. G. Brown: I do notice the difference. I think the purpose of this is slightly wider than the purpose we had in mind. This is the Amendment we sought to put in to protect the farming community from any future Conservative Government which wanted to repeal anything, like a previous one repealed the Corn Laws, and I am glad to see it cannot happen again.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill, as amended, to be reported.

Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended (in Committee and on recommittal,)considered.

Clause 1.—(PAYMENT OF PLOUGHING GRANTS IN ACCORDANCE WITH SCHEMES.)

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: I beg to move, in page 1, line 14, to leave out "three," and to insert "those."
Some hon. Members may remember that last week on the Committee stage I drew attention to what I regarded as a defective wording in this Clause. At the time the Parliamentary Secretary undertook to look into it. I expected that this evening he would be moving his own Amendment to set that right. I am rather surprised, and not a little disappointed, that he has not done so. That being so, the Minister may be able to accept my Amendment. It does not alter the intention of the Bill in the slightest degree. It merely seeks to re-form the wording of the Clause, which, as it stands, is inexact and ambiguous.
I am not concerned that there should be a separate scheme for the Principality of Wales at the moment. There are strong arguments for such an arrangement, but I am not arguing that particular point. My concern is that the


Clause, as it stands, is so badly drafted, that it does convey a studied insult to the Principality. [Laughter.] Hon. Members on the other side of the House who take it upon themselves to titter may well remind themselves of the lavish promises which the Welsh electorate was subjected to by their colleagues during the last General Election.
Let us look at this Clause. Four countries are named in it—England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. It may be argued that Northern Ireland is only two-ninths of a country. I personally have no objections, at all, if Northern Ireland, or the six counties in the north-east corner of Ireland, are promoted to the status of nationhood in order to delight the hearts of the Parliamentary draftsmen.
But I do strongly object that Wales, a country older in nationhood and national identity than any one of these, and a country which has contributed in peace and war to the security, prosperity and, not least, the agriculture of the United Kingdom, is demoted, indeed, wiped out from its position as a national unit by the terms of this Clause. That is the effect of the Clause as it stands, and as the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary have chosen to let it stand, even after the mistake was pointed out to them in the debate during the Committee stage.
While four countries are named, the Clause goes on to refer to "all three countries." The mathematics of the Clause is wrong. How is this kind of drafting possible? Is there no one in the drafting office, who takes care of this kind of thing? Is there no one among the advisers of the Minister who can point out to him how inevitable and unnecessary a feeling is aroused in Wales by this kind of drafting? What about the Minister of Welsh affairs? Where is he? Being the watchdog for Welsh interests, I suppose? What a watchdog. More like a poodle. [An HON. MEMBER: "A corgi."] By no means a corgi. The qualities of watchfulness, dash, and determination of the corgi are very considerable.
How is it that fully a week after this point had been raised, no representation has been made to the Ministers of Agriculture by the Minister for Welsh Affairs?

Would he allow this kind of insult to Scotland? I very much doubt it. The curious fact is that there never was a time when the Tory Party were so fulsome in their flattery of the Welsh people. Hardly a week goes by, but a ministerial spokesman comes to Wales and discovers some new virtue in the Welsh people.
It seems that, to a Tory Government, we have as many virtues as we have votes. The Minister of Agriculture recently came along, and paid high tribute to the Welsh agricultural community. Within a fortnight, this is what he tolerates to be done; implicitly to wipe out Wales as a distinctive country by the terms of this Bill.
It is not enough to flatter us in Wales. We expect respect and recognition in this House and in the legislation put forward here. Otherwise we shall take it that Wales is expected to ask that she should manage these matters on her own. If she did that she would not run the risk of being drafted out of existence.
I appeal once more to the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary. We feel most deeply about this question. Let the Government not say that this is a matter of no consequence. It is important. Let them not say that, after all, Wales is getting its £5 per acre. This is a matter of principle. It is a principle for which the ancient nation has fought persistently over a long period of centuries against the most overwhelming odds—the principle of maintaining its national integrity and identity. That to us is worth much more than £5 per acre.

Mr. Tudor Watkins: I beg to second the Amendment.
I hope that we shall get a better reply than that which was given in the Committee stage. This is a very badly drafted subsection. I was tempted, if I had been allowed by the Table, to put down an Amendment in the Welsh language. I hope that the spirit expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Caernarvon (Mr. G. Roberts) will be reciprocated by the Parliamentary Secretary. There is still another stage of this Bill in another place when this matter can be remedied for the benefit of those of us from Wales.
This is not a new consideration. Consideration was given to the special iden-


tity of Wales in the Agriculture Act, 1947, and in other Acts on agricultural matters, in the Forestry Act and in the Hill Farming Act. The good work done by the last Government, to which objection was not taken by hon. Gentlemen opposite, ought to be carried on.
I regret that the Minister for Welsh Affairs and his Joint Under-Secretary are not here. I wonder whether the Minister of Agriculture or his Parliamentary Secretary have consulted either of them on this issue. I wonder whether the Minister for Wales said, "Do not bother with that. There is nothing much in it." We should like to know. I see that the Parliamentary Secretary nods his head to show that he was consulted and that he made that reply. That will be very good news for the Welsh Press tomorrow morning.
Serious consideration ought to be given to this Amendment. We in Wales are not counted as a country or a nation. We are linked up with England. On a previous Bill I had to move an Amendment to make it clear to the people of Wales that they were entitled to the benefit of it. We have not gone as far as that here, but we suggest that there ought to be opportunity for the Minister to put forward a separate scheme for Wales.

Mr. Roderic Bowen: I support the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friends. This subsection contains a serious inaccuracy which amounts to an affront and insult to the Principality of Wales. When I saw mention of the three countries, I immediately assumed that the reference was to England, Wales and Scotland. But it is clear from the drafting that it is intended that the countries to be referred to are England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
So we have the assertion by implication that Wales is not a country, and to add insult to injury that Northern Ireland is a country. I would respectfully suggest that whereas Wales is a country, Northern Ireland or the South of England or North Wales is not a country in itself. The Minister does not consider Wales to be a country according to the Bill. That, I would respectfully suggest, is something that should be put right as soon as possible.
11.15 p.m.
By implication also there is a denial that Wales is a nation. I have taken the trouble, in case there should be any ambiguity, to look at the Oxford dictionary's definition of a country. We are told there that a country is the territory or land of a nation. So there is a denial by the Minister in this Bill that Wales is a nation. Perhaps it would be of value if I gave the definition in full:
The territory or land of a nation, usually an independent State or once independent and still distinct in race, language, institutions or historical memories.
I would respectfully suggest that we could not possibly have a more accurate description of the position of Wales vis-à-vis England, Scotland or Northern Ireland than that contained in that definition.
The matter does not rest there, because it might be said this is just a piece of clumsy draftsmanship. Unfortunately, there is evidence from the Second Reading and Committee stages of the Bill that this type of either deliberate insult to Wales or loose language is prevalent. For example, on Second Reading the Minister committed the same fault. Quite contrary to what the hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. G. Roberts) suggested, this error is not confined to the Tory Party or one side of the House, because in the speeches on the Second Reading and Committee stages the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) and the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) made the same mistake. Of course, they should know better.
I feel that if the Minister had taken the trouble to consult the Minister for Welsh Affairs he would have taken the earliest possible opportunity to put this matter right. In fact, if the Minister had chosen for one moment to revive his memory of Henry V he would have realised immediately that the language used in the Bill was much at fault. You will remember, Mr. Speaker, the words which were addressed by Fluellen to the King:
If your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did goot service in a garden where leeks did grow…
The King replied:
I wear it for a memorable honour: For I am Welsh you know, good countryman.


Fluellen: "All the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty's Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that…
King Henry: "Thanks, good my countryman.
Fluellen: "By Cheshu, I am your majesty's countryman…
Here we have in this Clause a denial that Wales is a country.
There is one other matter to which I would respectfully draw the attention of the Minister with regard to this Amendment. Unfortunately, the wording of the Bill prevents the Minister if he chose from designing a separate scheme as far as Wales is concerned. The Clause enables him, if he chooses, to prepare a separate scheme for Scotland or for Northern Ireland. I should have thought he would have been only too glad to have placed in the Bill—and an Amendment a little wider than the one under discussion at the moment would have enabled him to do so if he chose—a separate scheme for Wales as distinct from England.
I hope he will reconsider this matter in a way designed to remove this either studied or accidental insult to Wales, and, at the same time, widen the scope of the Clause so as to enable him if he so chooses to make provision for a separate scheme for Wales. I must say that when the Parliamentary Secretary spoke he did not fall into error in this matter. Throughout his speech on Second Reading he referred to Wales as distinct from England. He also—and this is important from the point of view of the second point I tried to make—indicated quite clearly that in this matter as in many other respects Wales had a particular problem.
For those reasons I urge the Minister, if he cannot accept the precise wording of the Amendment, to give an undertaking to the House that he will see to it that the wording of this Bill is altered so as to make it perfectly clear that Wales is a country, and to remove this unfortunate phraseology from the Bill as it stands.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: I fully endorse the arguments put forward by my two hon. Friends and by the hon. and learned Member for Cardigan (Mr. Bowen). This, on the face of it, appears to be just an unimportant drafting point,

but may I remind hon. Members on both sides of the House that it is far more than that.
Behind this small Amendment there lies a very great principle. It is, in fact, an assertion of the right of Wales to be regarded as a nation by this House at all times and in every Bill that comes before it. I do not think it is a studied insult on the part of the Minister to the Welsh people, although it could be so interpreted in the Principality—and will be so interpreted in many quarters there.
The omission appears to arise, as these omissions always arise in this House, from an obtuse refusal to appreciate what is quite obvious, that Wales has equal status with England and Scotland, and certainly with the Six Counties of Northern Ireland.
I would like to hear from the Minister whether he has consulted his right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and Minister for Welsh Affairs. I am quite certain that if the right hon. and learned Gentleman's attention had been drawn to this Amendment he would be extremely indignant to think that the country for which he has ministerial responsibility is being treated in such a cavalier fashion.
Wales has her own quite definite and separate agricultural problems which are distinct from those of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. If the Minister studies carefully the last debate on agriculture in this House he will realise why we submit that Wales is entitled to completely distinct consideration in the matter of a scheme under this Bill. I give notice to the Minister that if he does not accept this Amendment tonight we shall fight for it as hard as we can. I also give notice to the Government that if in future Bills they attempt to lower the status of Wales by comparison with Scotland, Northern Ireland or England we shall fight them at every opportunity.

Mr. T. W. Jones: I am pleased to have an opportunity to support this Amendment. This Bill emphasises once again the difficulty of persuading people that England and Wales are two distinct countries, and that the respective peoples are two distinct and separate nations. Why it should be so difficult I do not know. If one goes to Scotland or to Northern Ireland one can


easily persuade oneself—dialect apart—that he is still in England. No one can go to Merionethshire, Caernarvonshire, Anglesey——

Mr. Bowen: Or Cardigan.

Mr. Jones: Or Cardigan, without realising immediately that he is in a different country. He will not understand the language. I do not know whether the Minister has heard it, but I can give him an example of it by translating the last sentence:
Ni fuaasi'n alluog i ddeall yr iaith a lefarir.
This is the language habitually spoken by the people through the length and breadth of the Principality. Reference is always made to England and Wales, and, naturally, that coupling together of the two countries is irritating to ardent Welsh people. I think it would be more tolerable if sometimes there was a reference to Wales and England, but it is always England and Wales.
I would also remind the House how different the countries are geographically. Wales, as I said the last time we had a debate on agriculture, is a country of hill farmers, and these farmers have their peculiar problems, which were brought to the notice of the Minister during that debate. This again is an additional, and to my mind a very important reason why this Amendment should be agreed to on this occasion. I trust that it will be accepted in the spirit in which it has been moved, seconded and supported.

Mr. Raymond Gower: I should like to intervene briefly in this matter, because I represent a Welsh constituency, and ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to appreciate that, as has been said from the benches opposite, there is a sentiment in our part of the British Isles, which, while completely loyal to the Crown and indeed to the idea of the Commonwealth, resents the impression that the interests of Wales are being identified with England, and that the Principality is just being regarded as an additional English county.
I think it would be unfortunate if in this or any other Measure that impression strengthened, because undoubtedly there is a growing nationalistic sentiment, which, if this kind of thing goes on, might

be encouraged. For my part, I do not wish that nationalist movement to take control of the quite natural ideas in the minds of many Welsh people which are becoming a power in the State.
11.30 p.m.
It seems to me that we sometimes overlook the nature of the Principality. After all, the population of Wales is considerably greater than that of Northern Ireland, and indeed it is greater than that of a self-governing Dominion like New Zealand. As the hon. Member for Merioneth (Mr. T. W. Jones) observed, in his part of Wales undoubtedly a visitor is immediately aware that he is in a different country. I am quite prepared to admit that in my constituency there are places where one would not easily get that impression; but I live in the Anglicised part of Wales.
In urging the Parliamentary Secretary to accept this Amendment with sympathy—and its acceptance would not make any radical change—I ask him to realise that in agriculture particularly there have been some peculiar developments in Wales. As doubtless has been said on many occasions, Wales is primarily a country of smaller farms than those that are to be found in the English counties.
I must express my sympathy with the purpose of this Amendment. I leave it to the Government to consider it with proper sympathy for, after all, this Government have made a more positive advance towards Welsh devolution than have any previous Government. With all its limitations, the appointment of a Minister with extra responsibility for Welsh affairs together with the appointment of an extra Under-Secretary was a positive advance.

Mr. A. C. Manuel: Eye wash.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent): I think it would be reasonable if I started by reminding the House that, immensely important though these Welsh affairs are—and I am the first to recognise the Welsh national feeling that was expressed so eloquently tonight—we are discussing the Agriculture (Ploughing Grants) Bill and that we should therefore consider this issue within the ambit and the scope of the Bill.
The first comment I should make is that as this Amendment is drafted it would not be practicable to insert it in the Bill. The proposal to leave out "three," and to insert "those." would make it impossible to have a combination of three. One can only have a combination of two. Leaving aside the question of drafting, however, may I address a remark or two to the constitutional point which has been raised with such fire and eloquence by hon. Members from the Principality?
I should like to assure them straight away that, of course, we have looked very carefully at the suggestion which was made on the Committee stage—as we undertook to do—to discover whether it would be practicable and possible to give effect to what the hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. G. Roberts) asked. I can assure him that the reason why no Amendment was put down on the Order Paper was that in our opinion it was not possible to meet his request.

Mr. G. Roberts: I am very grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary for his usual courtesy. He said that it was only possible to join two countries together and not three. Actually, under this Amendment it would be possible to join four because the scheme for England and Wales together would still be the same scheme for both. In that event all that would be done would be to remove the word in the Clause which deprives Wales of any national position. The fact that there would be the same scheme for England and Wales would protect the position from the point of view of what the Parliamentary Secretary has just said.

Mr. Bowen: Is the Parliamentary Secretary seriously contending that this Clause cannot be amended to make it clear that England and Wales are two countries? If he is, I would respectfully suggest it is a quite absurd suggestion.

Mr. Nugent: When the hon. and learned Gentleman comes to read HANSARD tomorrow he will see I was making no such suggestion. Obviously, it would be possible to draft an Amendment to meet the point I was making. I only made that comment in passing because I think the House should know it.
I was about to address myself to the main weight of the comment made by

the Welsh Members. My general reply to the constitutional point is that England and Wales or, if they prefer it, Wales and England, have been administered as one agricultural unit traditionally for many years, and that it has been found a convenient and workable unit. Therefore, in this Bill we have followed the traditional form, which has worked satisfactorily in the past. There is certainly no derogation of the Principality's status either intended or implied, and I feel sure the people of Wales will not be so sensitive as to think that there could be any implication of that kind in following the normal wording, which has appeared in very many Acts.

Mr. Bowen: Could the hon. Gentleman give us any examples where the phrase "country" has been used to cover England and Wales?

Mr. Nugent: I think it will be found in the Hill Farming Act, the Livestock Rearing Act, and the Agriculture (Fertilisers) Act. I will get a complete list for the hon. Gentleman if he would like to have it, but I assure him that for agricultural purposes this is normal form.

Mr. Bowen: Is the Minister confusing instances where the phrase "England and Wales" is used and where there is statutory authority for Wales including England? [An HON. MEMBER: "Wales including England?"] It is an expression like "man embraces woman." Here there is a specific reference to the country, with an implication that Wales is not a country.

Mr. Nugent: I suspect that I have offended the hon. and learned Gentleman. If that is the source of his complaint, we will have to look more closely at the second scheme.
I now deal with the point raised by almost every Welsh Member—the special geographical and agricultural needs of Wales. First, it would be possible in a scheme to find a condition which applied to Wales only, if it was thought that because of the nature of any particular subsidy it was necessary so to apply, so that the need for a separate scheme for Wales could be covered within the terms of any scheme which was being drafted.
But, in a general way, although there are conditions in Wales which are exceptional, great parts of Welsh agriculture are the same as great parts of English


agriculture and, indeed, Scottish agriculture, and the right way of dealing with these special geographical problems in agriculture is by specific Acts, like the Hill Farming Act, which deals with very high lands, or the Livestock Rearing Act, which deals with very low lands, and so on, rather than by defining particular areas. I think that all the hon. Members from Wales can be assured that there is no danger in the Bill, as now drafted, that the particular agricultural and geographical problems of Wales cannot adequately be met.

Mr. C. Hughes: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that, whatever the merits or demerits of having a separate scheme for Wales, it is undesirable that Wales should be classed with England, for this purpose, as one country?

Mr. Nugent: The object of the Bill is to provide for the application of these grants to stimulate the ploughing up of grassland and if, as has happened often in the past, England and Wales can be conveniently treated as one administrative area, I think there is every reason to follow that precedent. I seriously suggest that there is no possible implication that because we have followed the normal practice in this matter—which has given good results in the past—that anybody in Wales should feel that the national pride is torn apart. That is not the implication in the Bill, and I hope that the House will agree to reject the Amendment.

Mr. G. Brown: I think that everybody in the House will have a good deal of sympathy with the viewpoint of the Welsh Members who have spoken, and I want to make an appeal to the Minister himself. Nobody complains of the manner in which the Parliamentary Secretary has dealt with this matter, but the Minister will know, as I have found from experience at the Ministry of Agriculture, that this is a very delicate subject; that it is looked upon with more importance in Wales.
We, in a practical frame of mind, think that there is a good deal of similarity between, say, the western counties, and some of the midland counties; there is the hill land in my own constituency. We think we are not so distinct from Wales, and that there is not much point in what has been said by my hon.
Friends. But, in Wales, a different view is taken, and more importance is attached to it; and the Minister should say a word about this himself because I think that it will give rise to a good deal of bad feeling in Wales if he does not.
I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to say a word or two about it and to consider the matter again before this Bill finishes its journey. If I thought that accepting the Amendment would put the Department in a difficulty in being forced to have a separate scheme for Wales which, after all, turned out to be almost similar to the scheme for England, I could understand it. But nothing which the Parliamentary Secretary has said led me to believe it would have that effect at all.
The Amendment, if accepted, leaves the position unchanged very largely from what it is now. All my hon. Friends want is that Wales should be recognised as a country separate in itself for the purposes of the working of this Bill; on all fours with the other countries forming the United Kingdom. I thought all of us would have accepted that, but at the moment the Parliamentary Secretary says that if there is a special Welsh agricultural need it can be dealt with now and that failure to agree to the proposed words does not mean that there is a case which cannot be met.
Surely that gives away his argument. If the Minister could meet a special Welsh case if one exists, what objection can there then be in amending the Bill in this form? There can be none at all. The only justification for dying in the last ditch over it is either if you do not want to admit that there is a special Welsh case or if you are prepared to admit it although, in fact, it is not there. I urge upon the Minister that, by making this Amendment, which does not seem to me to effect the practical situation as it already exists, he will make a very considerable concession to a body of feeling to which one does not wish to cause trouble. One does not wish to offend susceptibilities in the Principality to no particular purpose.
11.45 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary said that if we leave out the word "three," we can only have a joint scheme for two. I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Cardigan (Mr. Bowen) has convinced


him that at any rate we have one for two or one for four. With very great respect there is another place, and it seems if we wish to put in another Amendment to provide for three, two or four schemes, there is another opportunity for doing it. I hope that the hon. Gentleman did not mean that as a serious objection to the Amendment. As he gave the case away and paid lavish tribute himself to the need for recognizing Welsh feeling on the matter, and as he has said there is no practical objection, I cannot see why the Minister should propose to take this to the last ditch.
The hon. Gentleman made reference to consultation with the Minister for Wales or his Parliamentary Secretary. Why is neither of them here tonight? It must have been known that the only point likely to give rise to any debate tonight was this point. So much has been said about how much this Government are doing to recognise Wales, but neither of them troubles to come along and show interest by listening to the debate.
The Parliamentary Secretary still has not told us whether the Minister has been consulted. There was also the great song and dance made recently about the change the Minister was making in the position of his own Welsh Secretary, and the Home Secretary came to the House in all his glory and raiment to tell us that the Welsh Secretary of the Department of Agriculture was to have a new salary and a new status and to be consulted about all things affecting Wales.
I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he consulted the Minister for Wales? Did he consult his own Secretary? I have a suspicion that I could draft the advice he would have received from the Welsh Secretary. If he had consulted either of them he would have to tell us he is going against the advice of both. I think he is putting himself in the impossible position of being constantly shot at in Wales, and of offending susceptibilities for no practical reason whatever.
I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to tell us something about it, because I think this is important for public opinion in Wales. I would be with him in resisting this if I thought it would be making difficulty, but since I agree with the

Parliamentary Secretary it really does not make the position any different from what it is at present, I urge him to accede to the views of my hon. Friends and say that before the Bill finally finishes its journey, he will try to find a solution which meets the point and raises no practical objection.

Sir T. Dugdale: I really think that the House is making rather heavy weather of this, although I completely understand the point of view which is being raised in this debate by hon. Members from Welsh constituencies. But, listening to their speeches, it appeared to me that they were under the impression that this was something new. That is not the case at all.
The House knows only too well the circumstances regarding Welsh agriculture and respects the work of Welsh farmers in every part of the Principality. I wish to make it abundantly clear that the wording of this Bill follows parallel Acts; to give just two examples, the Agricultural (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1940, and the Agricultural (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1910. I have no doubt there are many others. I hope that the House, and particularly the hon. Members representing Welsh constituencies who have raised this point, will realise that there is nothing new about this and that the wording in no way detracts from the respect with which this House looks upon the farmers throughout the Principality.
To get back to the Bill itself, I think my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, dealt with the points, but I would summarise them again. The special position of Wales in relation to agriculture problems is understood, but it is at present a single administrative unit with England for agriculture purposes. Various agriculture advisory and executive functions are carried out on my behalf as Minister of Agriculture in Wales and in England. When this Bill becomes an Act, as I hope it will shortly, the agriculture executive committees of Welsh counties will carry out the actual examination of claims and payments of this subsidy, and will, in due course, report to me as Minister of Agriculture.
As the Parliamentary Secretary said, if it were decided in any future scheme to lay down special conditions so far as ploughing up Welsh land was concerned, it would be possible to do so by a special


clause in a particular scheme. But the House will agree that this is purely hypothetical. If at some future time some Government decided to take such a course, they would have to satisfy themselves, not only that the problems of Wales were different from those in England, but that the conditions at that time were different from those in England and, therefore, would justify a special clause in a definite scheme. If the House will consider the existing conditions they will agree that it is much more likely that any special provisions would apply to what we term the hill farming counties in England and Wales.

Mr. G. Brown: I think the Minister has a misconception of the proposal, which is to substitute the word "those" for the word "three," in the last line. The subsection would then read:
(2) A scheme under this Act may be a separate scheme for England and Wales, or for Scotland, or for Northern Ireland, or may be a joint scheme … for all three countries.
He is addressing his argument to the problem which would arise if this Amendment provided for a separate scheme for Wales; but the Amendment does not do so.
The Amendment would not make a separate scheme for Wales. It does not affect that part of the Clause, which deals with a separate scheme. The only separate schemes would be for England, Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland. The whole argument is misconceived. The right hon. Gentleman has to show that there would be some difficulty if he provided for a joint scheme for all these countries instead of a joint scheme for all three countries. I submit that he is answering a point which is not raised by this Amendment.

Mr. G. Roberts: I am obliged to my right hon. Friend for putting it so well. The Amendment was not directed to a separate scheme, although there may be a case for a separate scheme for Wales. I think it can be done administratively all right by inserting a Clause in the way the Minister described, but the Amendment is directed to re-forming the wording of this Clause. One can proceed with a joint scheme for England and Wales, but all we ask is that the Amendment should be re-arranged so as not to give, implicitly, a sense of insult and injury to Welsh people. I think that if the Amendment

were regarded as a drafting one, no serious consequence or difficulty would arise.

Sir T. Dugdale: This puts a completely new complexion on our discussion. We may be wrong on this side, but, if there is no intention that there should be a separate scheme for Wales, then I am prepared to have these words examined and see if anything can be done in another place before the Bill becomes an Act. What I was trying to say was that we cannot, at the moment, have a separate scheme for Wales.

Mr. Roberts: On that assurance, I think I can ask leave to withdraw the Amendment, but, I repeat, that the intention was not to seek a separate scheme for Wales. We seek a form of words which will meet the point put forward by my right hon. Friend. I am grateful to the Minister for giving that undertaking. If, in any way, Welsh Members can help him, between now and the next stage of the Bill, we shall be only too glad to talk over this matter in an amicable and helpful fashion. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 2.—(PERIOD IN RESPECT OF WHICH GRANTS MAY BE MADE.)

Mr. Hale: I beg to move, in page 2, line 23, at the end, to insert:
and for all subsequent schemes shall include the period from the first day of October to the fifteenth day of April.
I am very pleased, indeed, that the previous able and eloquent discussion ended so happily. As one of the few Englishmen representing an English constituency and as a member of the Parliamentary Committee for World Government, I wondered whether I had the temerity to rise at all tonight. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), who should have moved this Amendment, has today opted voluntarily for a life on the ocean wave, where he distinguished himself so much during the war, and I have to move this Amendment in his place.
This matter was fully debated in the last discussion, but the Minister of Agriculture appeared to think there was something sinister in this proposal or that we had something up our sleeves. He was convinced in the end that there was


not. We have put down this Amendment now to hear whether the Minister can tell us the result of his deliberations, battle, or conference with the other parties interested. I am certain that if he is able to make concession he will do so, but, if on this occasion, after all his successes, he has failed, I know that he will say "No" as courteously and politely as a Minister should.

Mr. Manuel: I beg to second the Amendment.

12 m.

Sir T. Dugdale: I am sorry that on this occasion I cannot respond to the request which has just been made. It is true that since the Committee stage we have examined this matter most carefully, and although we are not frightened of any of the horrible consequences behind this Amendment we feel that these words are unnecessary.
This Bill is an enabling Bill. Those of us who have been in this House for some time know that Governments change. I am not in the least indicating that it may be that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite will be in charge of affairs, but there may be other Governments from this side of the House. It might be that at some future date, when this Bill is on the Statute Book, and when there is a change of Government, there might be a wish to introduce a scheme and it might not be convenient absolutely to tie the period of the scheme to these dates.
I assure the House that in any scheme which is introduced the dates will be specifically set out and, further, that as long as I have the honour to be the Minister of Agriculture no scheme that I introduce will start on 5th February. That, I think, is the real fear of the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget).

Mr. Hale: The Minister's argument is so irresistible and irrefutable that I find myself speechless. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

12.2 a.m.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."—[Sir T. Dugdale.]

Mr. G. Brown: I have no desire to detain the House. On the other hand, there are one or two points I wish to make. We are indebted to the Minister for the way in which, right up to the very end of our consideration of this Bill, he has met the various suggestions put forward and the generous manner in which he has listened to what we have had to say even when it seemed that his own brief did not support him all the way. He has been willing to consider what we have said, and we are grateful to him.
I have said many times, and I say it again, that some of us regard this Bill as making a very much stronger case—to put it no higher than that—for legalising the first emergency scheme than it does for any further schemes. The Minister will have power to make his first scheme to put in order the bargain he made at the Price Review. It will enable him to pay the farmers the money to which they think they are entitled, as, indeed, morally they are.
But he will also have obtained power to introduce further schemes from now on. I appeal to him, despite the fact that he will have obtained the power, not to proceed from now on without a good deal more thought before he introduces further schemes. Some of us were almost crying in the wilderness when we began saying that the new principle of these subsidies agreed at the Price Review was not a good thing in general. Now I gather that the weight of support for that view is growing very considerably.
There has been great evidence in the interested Press that there is a strong body of opinion which supports the view which some of us have taken. I have good reason for thinking that there are a number of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite who take the same view. They include those who are most closely connected with agriculture who know most about what these guaranteed prices really mean. Because that opinion is growing, because I am so sure we are right, I appeal to the Minister not to go on his wider powers without a good deal more thought.
I know that the National Farmers' Union, at Bedford Square, attach a great deal of importance to the continuance of ad hoc subsidies rather than guaranteed prices. I believe that on this Bedford Square, not for the first time, does not know its own membership as well as it ought to or as some people outside do. I believe that they are making the mistake of thinking they are playing to the views of the most vocal group but not the most important group or the most instructed group of their members.
I am sure that the industry will be better served by guaranteed prices than by these ad hoc subsidies except under special circumstances or for special reasons, such as might be said to operate this year. Therefore, I hope that we shall not be faced with a continuing scheme without a good deal of thought and some special reasons being adduced. I have heard in the last week or so some criticisms from the counties that the payment has not already been made for the ploughing done this year. That arises from the fact that they do not understand our somewhat lengthy procedure. When they had the announcement made to them that there was to be a ploughing grant, many months back, they got the impression that as soon as they did the ploughing up they would get the grant.
They have now spent money on tractors, fertilisers and seeds and they are beginning to get a bit worried. All I am asking—the Minister should get his Bill through quickly—is that in the meantime he should have laid on all the machinery so that the payments can begin to be made at the earliest possible dates. If farmers have committed themselves, particularly the small farmers, it is important to get money into their hands quickly, because they are the very ones short of ready capital to finance their operations.
The Minister might consider issuing, through his county committees, a note about the position, so that the farmers who do not follow our debates with all that enthusiasm we ourselves do will know, nevertheless, what is happening. We are very glad on this side to give the Bill an unopposed Third Reading, because, obviously, we want to see this first scheme through. But we must not be taken as committing ourselves to the

view that other schemes are either desirable or necessary; and I hope that the Minister will keep an open mind.

12.8 a.m.

Mr. Archer Baldwin: I have imposed upon myself a self-denying ordinance during the whole of this Bill. It is well known that I have opposed subsidies ever since I came into this House, and I am glad to think that after five years a Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer has recognised the absurdity of subsidies. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will follow his example, and not deal with the farmers through this method.
There have only been three or four consistent opponents of subsidies ever since I came here, and it was strange to hear the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) condemning subsidies and pump priming, because if anybody is more responsible for subsidies and pump priming I do not know who he is. One speaks of poachers turned gamekeepers. The right hon. Gentleman is more like a gamekeeper who has turned poacher.
On the Second Reading he said that subsidies were pump priming. I hope he will apologise for using the word "subsidies." The phrase should be "production grant." I was brought up with the idea that if a pump wanted priming you only primed it until you could call in someone to remedy the defect. The right hon. Gentleman also said:
Our experience in the past has been that the thing upon which one has been priming the pump does not go on under its own momentum."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th May, 1952; Vol. 500, c. 434.]
I hope that my right hon. Friend will reap the benefit of his experience and will take note of that. Another statement made by the right hon. Gentleman was that there were many criticisms against the use of subsidies instead of an end price.
That is the sort of thing that some of us have been saying for many years, that instead of subsidies and expedients of that sort the right way to deal with agriculture is to give an end price for the product we are producing and not to lay us open to the jibes and criticisms of hon. Members opposite who talk about the industry being feather-bedded, £5 note bedded, and so on. Although I realise


that the Bill is necessary to make possible the first scheme which we have been promised, I hope that my right hon. Friend will take note of what has been said by the right hon. Member for Belper and will not proceed with any other schemes of this sort.
All the arguments against it were used by the right hon. Gentleman in the Second Reading debate, and I do not propose to repeat them, although, if necessary, I could do so. The way to make farmers plough up is to make it worth their while. Give them a profit on what they produce and go for a tonnage target instead of an acreage target. What matters is the tonnage, and not the amount of acreage ploughed.
I hope that not only in this particular instance, but in every instance the industry will be treated as a business concern and not as one in need of pump priming, subsidies, and so on. We are the biggest industry in Great Britain, both in output and in the number of men we employ. It is time that we were treated as a business concern and given a certain amount of freedom. If we get that, I am sure we shall produce a great deal more than at the present time.
I still maintain that this country can be pulled out of the mess it is now in as regards its balance of payments position if only agriculture is treated as it should be treated and is given a free hand to help to close the trade gap which exists. I hope that we shall have less of this sort of subsidy and that by the next Price Review we shall be given a price for what we produce and that this method will be abolished.

12.13 a.m.

Mr. Nugent: I am sure that the House will not want a very long and comprehensive reply from me because we discussed this matter at great length in the Committee stage. May I first say to my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin), who, I know, has the deepest and strongest interest in getting the maximum production from our fields, that I sympathise with his point of view, although I cannot agree with it?
I would also say to the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) that we are giving most careful thought to whether there should be a future scheme, and, if so, what it should be. If and when we bring it before the House then will be the time to discuss it in great detail.
The problem of whether (a) we shall get a greater acreage ploughed and therefore greater production, and (b) at a lower cost by giving these ploughing subsidies rather than a higher end price, is something one can debate at considerable length, and I am sure it is not necessary for me to do so now. But I think it would not be right to let the matter pass if it was thought that I agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that those who are in closest touch with farming necessarily take the view which he takes that the higher end price is the better method. I do not think that is so at all. There are two schools of thought on this matter. I dare say that those who agree and disagree will be found in all positions in agriculture and in the agricultural world.
With regard to the smaller issue which the right hon. Gentleman raised I can assure him, and the House, that preparations are being made and that as soon as the Bill has reached a stage where it is appropriate for forms to go out to farmers they will go out. We hope that that will be fairly early on next month. We are trying to get them out as early as possible, and I am at the receiving end of a number of complaints about non-payment. I am reminded that we are committed to a second scheme and we shall be bringing it forward before the House so the right hon. Gentleman will have his opportunity. The main justification for the ploughing subsidy is that it has got the acreage ploughed and is getting the food we want. That is the justification for the Bill, which I now ask the House to give a Third Reading.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

Orders of the Day — CREDIT TRADING

Motion made, and question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Major Conant.]

12.15 a.m.

Mr. John Rankin: Despite the lateness of the hour I must draw the attention of the House to the widespread evasion of the Hire Purchase And Credit Sales Order which became effective on 1st February last. In the words of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade the purpose of this Order is
to check demands upon the productive capacity required for defence and for export."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th March, 1952; Vol. 497, c. 1712.]
If I may quote the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer in an earlier debate, the Order was necessary because
Credit restriction will also limit hire purchase, which is essentially a form of living beyond one's means."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th January, 1952; Vol. 495, c. 59.]
The intention of the Government was, therefore, clear. It was to restrict credit, to limit spending and to free materials for defence and export.
The methods employed in this Order are, I take it, familiar to every hon. Member in the House. The initial payment was steeply raised as high as 33⅓ per cent. of the retail price of the article being bought. The period of repayment was sharply contracted indeed, and limited to 18 months. The effect of that was to be the effect which had been detailed both by the Parliamentary Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do not wish to look at the methods employed, but rather to examine some of the results which have followed the passing of this Order.
The hon. and learned Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade said on 13th March:
It would not be at all astonishing if in the working of this Order certain defects were found."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th March, 1952; Vol. 497, c. 1716.]
Those defects have been found. The Order is being evaded by a system of rental agreements and it is to this evasion that I am calling the attention of the House. The rental agreements avoid the heavy initial payment laid down by the

Government or in many cases make it merely nominal. All the rental agreements ignore the legal obligation of the customer to discharge his debt within the time stipulated by this House and establish in place of that stipulated time purely arbitrary conditions.

Mr. A. C. Manuel: Racketeers.

Mr. Rankin: In some cases the rental agreement is partly verbal and in all cases its terms are onerous. Generally, it punishes those who keep the law and rewards those who are now breaking that law which it is the business of this House to maintain.
I should like to give the House some examples of what is taking place. May I say, first, that we are entitled to pay tribute to the fact that the Co-operative movement all over the country is seeking to support the Government in this Order and that for so doing they are being punished? One Co-operative society which sold 25 radio sets weekly before the Order was introduced is selling four radio sets weekly since the Order came into force and selling three bicycles every week as against 50 bicycles previously.
Another society which, from February to May, 1951, sold 1,200 radio and television sets, sold 262 in the same period of this year. Another society which, in May, 1951, sold 10 vacuum cleaners sold five in May of this year. Still another society which over a particular period last year had a radio trade of £2,837 showed a trade return of £1,162 for a similar period after the Order was passed.
These are sharp losses in trade. I know of course, that the Minister and the Government are patting themselves on the back and saying, "See how effective our Order has been. It has limited spending. It has restricted credit, so it is freeing all these materials for defence and export purposes." That is not the case, What has been happening is that the trade that is being lost by those who are seeking to keep the law is being gained now by those who are breaking the law.
I turn to the "Digest of Statistics" for May, 1952. Before the Order was introduced imposing these limitations in December last year, we were producing 57,000 television sets. In March of this year, after the order, we produced 71,000. In spite of the Order to restrict


and limit, more television sets than ever are being produced. That clearly shows that these sets, which are not being kept as ornaments by the manufacturers, are going into trading concerns in this country and are being disposed of by rental agreement arrangements.
I admit that, in radio, the December figure, 131,000, shows a drop to 117,000; but our export, which was to be encouraged, shows only a rise from 53,000 to 58,000. In electric washing machines—here, again, the Minister hoped that this would increase exports—exports have fallen from 28,000 in December, before the Order, to 16,898 in March, after the Order. The number of vacuum cleaners produced, for the fourth quarter of 1951 was 79,000; for the first quarter of 1952 the number was 185,000. The number exported in the last quarter of 1951 was 34,000, and in the first quarter this year 70,000. The number retained on the home market had grown from 45,000 to 115,000.
These figures indicate that what is lost in trade by those whose practices are in keeping with the law is being won by those who are evading the law and, in addition, throwing this aspect of the Chancellor's Budget strategy to the four winds. The Minister will say, "Give me the facts and I will make the way of the transgressor hard." Many facts have been submitted to the Minister and I have here a bundle which he can and shall have. But that will be an ineffective process. No solution of the problem will be found by embarking on individual prosecutions. The Minister must either withdraw the Order or amend it to cover the case I have submitted.
Production is in many cases increasing, but exports are not. That indicates that the difference is being retained in the home market in spite of the Order. I suggest two things to the Minister. If he wants to restrain the sale of these commodities on the home market, why not do so at the production stage by limiting the supply of materials? Why go on giving the materials to these firms when a cut in sales is wanted? Is it not much easier to restrict and control the activities of 10 or 12 great manufacturing organisations rather than the sales of thousands of retailers all over the country?
Here is another suggestion. If we want to limit the spending of the individual and to protect him, as we must, why not limit the increase on the retail price of these commodities by an agreed percentage to cover the deferred payment? The present position is chaotic. Methods of repayment vary from no interest at all, as in the case of the Co-operative societies, to 30 or 40 per cent., or even higher. I have supplied individual cases to the Minister, and he should be aware of them; and I will not delay further by quoting them to the House.
The situation could be tidied up by allowing, in the case of those goods bought on the instalment plan, a fixed and known percentage increase on the retail price, as is already being done, I think, in the case of furniture. If the Minister is not prepared to withdraw his Order, then I trust that he will amend it along the lines I have indicated or at least in ways which will allow him to achieve the purpose which is not now being effected.

12.33 a.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Henry Strauss): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Tradeston (Mr. Rankin) for having given me some indication, both orally and by letter, of what he had in mind to raise tonight. Indeed, he also gave me an indication by the Question he put on 27th May of this year. As I told him in reply, Her Majesty's Government are aware that there has been an increase in the number of rental agreements for television and radio sets, and I made it clear that, if any cases were brought to our notice which proved, on investigation, to involve a breach of the Hire-Purchase and Credit Sale Agreements (Control) Order, action would be taken.
The hon. Member quoted, quite accurately, the aim of this Order, which I gave in the Adjournment debate on 13th March. Of the policy of the Order I propose to say nothing tonight, for reasons which I know the hon. Member will appreciate; namely, that the policy of that Order was challenged in this House by Prayer, and the matter proceeded to a Division, and the House approved the policy of the Order. The object, as I stated then, was to check demands on the productive capacity required for defence and export; and I


then pointed out what the reason was for the choice of articles subject to the Order, namely, that they involved the metal using and engineering industries.
The first point which arises, since we are not discussing the policy of the Order, is whether the Government's object is, in fact, being defeated by an increased use of rental agreements which has followed the making of the Order. In spite of the figures given by the hon. Member, I assure the House that the answer to that question is "No." The object of the Order is not thereby being defeated.
There has been a substantial reduction in all kinds of credit trading which has not been offset by any of the devices of which the hon. Gentleman complained. I think the hon. Gentleman will see that that does not necessarily involve the questioning of his figures—although I do not pretend I have checked them all. As he knows, the Order affects retail sales. The figures he gave did not refer to retail sales, and one could not expect a fall in production except in the last two months. I think that when he gets the later figures he will be satisfied that there is no evidence at all that the object of the Government has been defeated.

Mr. Rankin: I recognised, of course, when I gave the figures that that escape was afforded to the hon. and learned Gentleman, and we must await the next month or two to see how the production figures go; but I wish him to realise that I did my best to get from the firms who are running the rental agreements what their sales were. They refused to talk, and, consequently, I was forced to go to the production end to get my figures and worked out my own conclusions along those lines.

Mr. Strauss: I listened with admiration to the care the hon. Gentleman had taken in the preparation of his case. On all the evidence available to the Government I can assure the House that our object is not being defeated by any of these devices.
The fall in sales has been very great. They have been quoted and even published in the case of radio and television sets, but I do not wish to go into a great many figures, and I would say at once that the drop is not by any means wholly attributable to this Order. The House will remember—to quote but one

example—the doubling of the Purchase Tax in the 1951 Budget, and there are other matters which I could mention. But the evidence we have is that manufacturers are turning their capacity to re-armament and export.
I quite agree with the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members that, while it is important to establish that the object of the Government in this Order is not being defeated, the House is quite right in desiring something more. They wish to know not only that the Order is the right policy and is achieving its object, but that it is achieving its object without injustice. I quite appreciate the interest felt on both sides of the House that that should be so, and that the unscrupulous should not profit while the honest suffer—that contraventions of the Order should not go on and be unpunished.
A number of practices which possibly involve contravention have been brought to our notice from several sources. Hon. Members on both sides have brought to our attention certain practices which seem to need investigation, and we have our inspectors. Investigation has followed, and the Board of Trade most certainly intend to prosecute in certain cases where sufficient evidence for prosecution is available.
Since these prosecutions are now contemplated, the House will appreciate that it would not be desirable for me to discuss matters which may come before the courts for judicial decision. It would not help any of the causes which the hon. Member or I have in mind. That precludes me from going into detail on a number of matters which I can quite understand might interest hon. Members, but I would add a few words in the hope that, if they receive any publicity, it may have a good effect and more than justify the hon. Member in having brought forward this matter for discussion tonight.
I would appeal to customers and shoppers. A customer will serve his own interest and the public interest if he takes the trouble at least to ascertain the nature of the transaction into which he is entering. He must not be so eager to obtain delivery of an article that he signs a document without troubling to read it, or, indeed, without finding out whether the article will ever become his. A man will, for example, be very foolish if he


enters into a transaction where the total amount to be paid greatly exceeds the cash price of the article and the article will, nevertheless, not become his property. He really must take the trouble to read the agreement. It is very difficult indeed to help those who will not help themselves.
The hon. Member said that many of these hiring agreements were onerous. Some of the terms that have been brought to my notice would be very onerous indeed if the property in the goods was never to pass to the hirer; but I must point out that there are honest straight-forward rental agreements and that these are perfectly legal. It is not every hiring agreement which can be said to be an evasion of the Order. I appeal to customers to take the trouble to find out the nature of the transaction into which they are entering. Ordinary hiring agreements are perfectly legal.
Every trader is at liberty to enter into such hiring transactions, but the Board of Trade are determined to bring other transactions, in which the real, as contrasted with the pretended, arrangement involves a breach of the Order, before the criminal courts. I give that assurance to the House. That fact may act as a warning to the less honest traders and may prove an encouragement to the honest.
I say, therefore, to sum up, that, while I would be out of order in discussing the policy of this Order, which has the express approval of the House, I can tell the House that what we intended to effect by the Order has not been defeated by any of these practices; but in so far as some of these practices do involve a breach of the Order we intend to pursue them in the criminal courts.

Adjourned accordingly at a Quarter to One o'Clock a.m.